w 


THE 

AMERICAN 
TEN  YEARS'  WAR 

-  1855-1865 


BY 

DENTON  J.  SNIDER 

M 


ST.  LOUIS 
SIGMA  PUBLISHING  CO. 

210  PINE  STREET 
FOR  SALE  BY  A.  C.  MCCLURG  &  Co.,  BOOKSELLERS,  CHICAGO,  ILLS. 


COPYRIGHT  BY 
D.  J.  SNIDER,  1906 


c<    v_ 


NIXON-JONES  PTQ.    CO.     215    PINE  ST.,  ST.  LOUIS. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE. 

PART  I.     THE  BORDER  WAR  (1855-8). 

CHAPTER   I.  —  THE   OPENING   CONFLICT 

(1855-6).     .     .     '.',    .     .     .-',.-.     .  5 

THE  FIRST  INVASION 5 

THE  SECOND  INVASION 55 

THE  THIRD  INVASION      .     .     .     .     .  82 

CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  YEAR 

(1856-7)      .     .     . 92 

PRESIDENTIAL  NOMINATIONS.     ...  98 

PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN      .     .     .     .  119 

OUTLOOK 134 

CHAPTER  III.  —  THE      STRUGGLE      RE 
NEWED  (1857-8) 137 

WASHINGTON 148 

KANSAS 154 

THE  PEOPLE  .  .  .  .  .  ...  169 

RETROSPECT 179 

(3) 


4  COy  TENTS. 

PART  II.  THE  UNIO*  DISUNITED  (1858-61)  185 

CHAPTER  I.  —  THE  NORTH  .     .     .     .     .194 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 201 

JOHN  BROWN 219 

SIMEON  BUSHNELL.     ......  244 

CHAPTER  II.  —  THE   SOUTH    .     .     .   •.     .  262 

THE  SLAVEHOLDERS 290 

THE  NON-SLAVEHOLDERS  303 


THE  SLAVES 315 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  PROCESS  OF  SECES 
SION     3?0 

THE  FIRST  ALIGNMENT 337 

THE  SECOND  ALIGNMENT     ....  350 

THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT 365 

KETROSPECT 425 

PART  III.  —  THE    UNION    REUNITED 

(1861-5) 435 

THE  WINNING  OF  THE  UNSECEDED 

SLAVE-STATES  (1861-2)  ....  485 

THE  WINNING  OF  THE  SECEDED  SLAVE- 
STATES  (NEW),  1862-3  ....  499 

THE  WINNING  OF  THE  SECEDED  SLAVE- 
STATES  (OLD),  1864-5  ....  508 

RETROSPECT  .     .'    .     .  521 


PART  FIRST,—  THE  BORDER  WAR, 

CHAPTER  I.     THE   OPENING    CONFLICT 

(1855-6). 

Jfiret  Invasion. 


During  the  last  days  of  March,  1855,  a  small 
army,,  some  5,000  men  as  the  account  runs, 
inarched  from  the  State  of  Missouri  over  its 
western  boundary  into  the  neighboring  Territory 
of  Kansas.  There  was  no  open  proclamation  of 
war,  and  the  country  generally  supposed  itself  to 
be  in  possession  of  peace  at  home  and  abroad. 
Still  here  was  a  military  organization  in 
semblance,  belonging  to  no  State  legally  nor  to 
the  United  States,  commanded  by  Generals  and 
Colonels  and  Captains,  and  accompanied  by  a  train 
of  wagons  containing  supplies  of  food  and  liquor 
and  ammunition.  The  men  were  armed  with  guns 
and  pistols;  many  of  them  showed  their  dis 
tinctive  weapon  in  a  unique  way  :  bowie-knives 


6  THE  TEN  YEAR&   WAR. 

protruding  from  the  tops  of  their  boots.  They 
had  been  recruited  chiefly  from  the  western 
counties  of  Missouri,  which  also  contributed  the 
main  expenses  of  the  expedition,  deeming  them 
selves  the  vanguard  of  Southern  civilization  in 
the  great  conflict  manifestly  approaching  and 
ready  to  break  out  on  their  border.  Mighty  was 
the  enthusiasm,  overflowing  into  multitudinous 
streams  of  oratory  from  the  leaders,  who  were 
mostly  politicians  in  line  of  promotion,  and  who 
had  the  power  of  evoking  in  their  hearers  volley 
after  volley  of  profanity  discharged  against  the 
Abolitionists  over  in  Kansas  and  in  the  North. 

War  in  peace,  then,  we  behold  on  the  Kansas- 
Missouri  border  during  these  fair  spring  days; 
what  does  it  portend?  Such  a  mass  of  men 
could  not  have  been  gathered,  drilled  and 
organized  without  money  and  much  previous 
effort.  It  is  now  known  that  they  were 
members  of  a  secret  oath-bound  society  called 
the  Blue  Lodge  mainly,  though  other  names  of 
it  were  current.  A  fixed,  persistent  purpose  lies 
back  of  it,  an  idea,  we  must  believe;  it  bodes 
some  struggle  impending,  whereof  this  is  the  first 
little,  distant  outbreak,  the  harbinger  of  might 
ier  events  coming  on.  So  these  Missouriaus 
march  across  the  border,  totally  unconscious  of 
the  colossal,  world-historical  drama  whose  first 
scene  they  are  enacting. 

No    doubt  could    be    entertained    concerning 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  1 

their  immediate  object,  for  it  was  openly  pro 
claimed  by  all;  they  intended  to  vote  in  Kansas, 
though  non-residents,  and  to  elect  a  Territorial 
Legislature,  which  would  transform  it  into  a 
Slave-State.  Their  scheme  was  to  seize  hold  of 
the  law-making  power  by  violence,  and  then 
render  their  illegal  acts  legal.  A  curious  mental 
condition  was  this  of  the  Missourians,  yet  their 
leaders  upheld  it  by  argument  as  well  as  by  fervid 
appeals  to  conscience  and  to  eternal  justice,  in 
voking  even  the  God  of  battles.  March  30th 
the  election  took  place.  In  a  voting  population 
of  about  3,000,  according  to  a  census  taken  a  few 
weeks  before  the  election,  6,300  votes  were 
cast,  nearly  four-fifths  of  them  by  Missourians 
who  took  possession  of  most  of  the  polling- 
places,  ousted  any  recalcitrant  judges,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  accept  their  own  ballots  for  their  own 
candidates.  The  result  was  a  complete  triumph 
of  Missourians  choosing  themselves  for  Kansas 
legislators,  who  were  39  in  number.  The  Gov 
ernor,  Reeder,  had  to  canvass  the  returns,  and, 
though  an  appointee  of  the  Democratic  Adminis 
tration,  did  not  relish 'the  Missouri  method  of 
undoing  the  ballot  through  the  ballot.  Still  he 
gave  certificates  of  election  to  all  but  seven,  look 
ing  into  the  muzzles  of  cocked  pistols,  it  is  said, 
which  had  also  a  significant  power  of  speech, 
saying  to  him :  We  shall  spit  fire  if  you  go  be 
hind  the  returns.  In  the  seven  districts  where 


8  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

ballots  were  thrown  out  on  account  of  infor 
malities  too  brazen,  a  new  election  took  place 
which  resulted  in  the  choice  of  seven  Kansas 
legislators  for  Kansas,  who,  however,  were  soon 
unseated  by  the  Missouri  members,  as  usurpers 
of  the  sacred  rights  of  Missourians. 

Contemplating  these  events  we  have  to  ask 
ourselves :  Is  here  a  mere  local  trouble,  a  border 
foray  of  outlaws,  or  is  this  spirit  getting  to  be 
general  in  the  South?  Is  the  ballot,  the  great 
Anglo-Saxon  instrumentality  for  obviating  vio 
lence,  to  be  set  aside  by  violence?  Is  the  ma 
jority  no  longer  to  rule  in  this  country?  If  so, 
war  must  come,  since  the  means  of  all  peaceful 
settlement  between  contending  parties  is  broken 
into  fragments  and  scattered  to  the  winds. 
Ominous  of  1861  is  already  1855  in  Kansas. 

The  Missourians  declared  undisguisedly  that 
their  purpose  was  to  make  Kansas  a  Slave- 
State  without  any  regard  for  the  wishes  of 
her  people.  To  that  end  they  had  now 
seized  the  legislative  power  of  the  Territory, 
which  rightfully  belonged  to  its  actual  settlers. 
Already  the  Missourians  supposed  that  they 
had  both  the  executive  and  the  judicial  branches 
of  the  Territorial  organization.  The  Gover 
nor  and  other  administrative  officials  were 
appointed  by  the  President,  Franklin  Pierce, 
who  was  dominated  by  the  slave  power  of 
which  the  head  was  already  Jefferson  Davis, 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION. 

Secretary  of  War  at  Washington.  The  Judi 
ciary  of  the  Territory  likewise  was  a  Presi 
dential  appointment,  and  would  not  fail  to  co 
operate  with  the  Missourians,  as  time  showed. 
The  scheme  of  the  invaders,  accordingly,  was 
to  get  control  of  the  Legislature,  preventing  the 
inhabitants  from  governing  themselves,  since 
they  were  manifesting  a  decided  tendency  toward 
wheeling  Kansas  into  the  company  of  the  Free- 
States,  from  which  most  of  them  had  come. 
Unfortunately  Governor  Reeder  had  legalized  in 
form  the  illegal  act  of  the  invaders,  through 
his  certificates  of  election.  Thus  illegality  was 
made  legal  and  was  enthroned  not  only  as  law, 
but  as  the  law-making  power  of  Kansas.  Reeder 
will  repent  of  his  action,  and  will  valiantly  battle 
against  the  consequences  of  his  own  mistake, 
showing  his  deepest  worth  by  making  undone 
his  own  ill-doing,  as  far  as  lies  in  his  power. 

Such  is  the  fierce  contradiction  in  the  institu 
tional  order  of  Kansas,  rending  to  pieces  her 
ethical  life  and  making  her  truly  a  perverted 
world.  The  established  authority  is  used  to  dis 
establish  the  foundation  of  authority,  the  con 
sent  of  the  governed ;  the  three  powers  of  gov 
ernment,  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial,  are 
in  the  hands  of  those  who  intend  to  employ 
them  for  undermining  their  source,  the  will  of 
the  people.  The  forms  of  free  institutions  are 
turned  into  destroyers  of  freedom,  and  the  law 


10  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

is  driven  to  the  point  of  stabbing  itself  and  let 
ting  its  own  heart's  blood.  In  such  a  perverted 
institutional  world  man  cannot  live  in  peace. 
How  can  he  be  even  legal  when  illegality  makes 
the  law?  Still  he  must  remain  law-abiding  till 
he  can  somehow  re-make  the  law  by  which  he 
abides. 

Over .  all  these  occurrences  gleams  the  ques 
tion  :  Was  the  act  of  the  Missourians  represen 
tative?  Did  it  reach  beyond  their  State  even  to 
the  Atlantic?  Did  it  reveal  the  spirit  and  the 
rising  purpose  of  the  South?  Many  and  loud 
were  the  exultations  in  the  newspapers  from 
Westport  in  Missouri  to  Charleston  in  South 
Carolina;  the  event  was  hailed  as  the  certain 
triumph  of  Slavery.  On  the  whole  the 
Southerners  made  this  deed  of  their  borderland 
their  own,  approving  it  and  setting  it  up  for 
imitation.  Still  there  were  protests,  some  of 
them  pronounced  but  most  of  them  suppressed. 
The  extremists  were  in  the  saddle  and  were  bent 
on  riding  at  the  top  of  their  speed.  The  con 
servatives  were  carried  along  in  the  fateful  sweep 
of  the  time,  even  when  they  saw  the  stream 
plunging  toward  a  Niagara  cataract. 

We  have  called  these  invaders  Missourians, 
since  they  were  chiefly  recruited  from  North 
western  Missouri,  whose  wind-lands,  containing 
the  finest  soil  in  the  United  States  according  to 
H,  competent  observer,  were  occupied  at  an  early 


PART  1.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  11 

day  by  slaveholders,  who  became  slavery's 
strongest  partisans.  But  Missouri  is  a  large 
State,  and  as  a  whole  hardly  approved  of  these 
border  invasions  instigated  from  the  Platte  Pur 
chase.  This  inference  may  be  reasonably  drawn 
from  Missouri's  vote  for  Douglas  and  his  Popu 
lar  Sovereignty  in  1860,  after  his  breach  with 
the  South  just  on  this  Kansas  question.  More 
over  Missouri  had  during  these  years  (1856-60) 
an  active  minority  in  favor  of  making  it  a  Free 
State. 

The  question  of  questions,  then,  looming  up 
over  the  Border  is,  Shall  this  new  Territory  be 
tilled  with  the  labor  of  slaves  or  of  freemen? 
The  conflict  has  opened  on  the  dividing  line 
between  the  settled  and  the  unsettled  lands  of 
the  national  domain,  on  the  boundary  between 
States  already  in  the  Union  and  those  which  are 
hereafter  to  come  into  the  Union.  We  may  well 
regard  it  as  the  visible  demarcation  of  the 
present  from  the  future ;  indeed  we  shall  soon 
see  it  transformed  into  a  battle-line  between  the 
old  and  the  new  order,  between  the  outgoing  and 
the  incoming  civilization.  The  struggle  will 
reach  far  beyond  the  confines  of  Kansas,  will 
involve  the  whole  United  States,  and  will  have 
an  abiding  influence  upon  the  destiny  of  both 
Americas  aud  of  the  entire  world.  So  it  must 
be  said  that  in  this  remote  border-land  is  enacted 
a  scene  in  the  grand  drama  of  Universal  History, 


12  THE  TEN  YEAES*   WAE. 

and  that  Kansas  for  a  brief  period  rises  to  the 
point  of  making  herself  world-historical. 

Such  a  mighty  birth  lies  ensconced  in  this 
seemingly  insignificant  border  foray  of  a  lawless 
horde  —  an  event  which  otherwise  would  not  be 
worthy  of  the  record.  But  the  years  will 
speedily  show  it  to  have  a  meaning  more  than 
local  or  even  national,  and  so  the  historic  Muse, 
sitting  at  the  inner  shrine  of  Time's  occurrences 
and  watching  their  hidden  movement,  will  dip 
her  pen  afresh  for  their  deeper  and  more 
pregnant  portrayal.  Before  the  tribunal  of  all 
History,  then,  have  appeared  the  two  contestants 
with  their  pressing  question :  Shall  this  Kansas 
be  a  Slave-State  or  a  Free-State?  And  under 
neath  yet  along  with  it  lurks  another  prof  ounder 
interrogation  :  Shall  this  Federal  Union  hereafter 
bring  forth  Slave-States  or  Free-States?  And 
still  more  deeply  may  we  catch  a  gleam  of  the 
oracle  flashing  fitfully  upon  the  night  of  the 
future  an  affirmative  response  to  the  question 
whether  or  not  the  Free-State  is  to  be 
universal. 

But  limiting  our  vision  to  a  smaller  and  more 
definite  round  of  events,  we  can  say  that  the 
American  Civil  War  has  now  started,  and  it  is  not 
going  to  stop  till  the  right  and  complete  thing  be 

done.     On  the    Missouri-Kansas  border  during 

t3 

the  vernal  tide  of  March-April,  1855,  with  the 
coming  of  the  invaders  the  whirlwind  rose,  or,  in 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  13 

Kansas  phrase,  *'  the  blizzard  broke  loose," 
strangely  refusing  to  blow  itself  out  into  noth 
ingness  and  be  pacified  till  a  great  historic  cycle 
had  evolved  itself  into  completeness.  For  its  con 
clusion  we  must  look  through  ten  years  and  note 
what  is  taking  place  during  these  same  spring 
days  in  1865.  Sheridan  is  at  Five  Forks,  Eich- 
mond  falls,  the  Southern  Confederacy'  collapses, 
and  on  April  the  9th  is  Lee's  surrender  at  Ap- 
pomattox.  The  border  blizzard  has  swollen  up 
to  an  all-embracing  national  cyclone  of  war ;  start 
ing  from  its  little  spot  in  the  distant  West,  it  has 
swept  through  Missouri  and  down  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  overwhelming  all  the  new  Slave-States 
and  then  all  the  old  Slave-States,  really  the  origin 
of  the  whole  trouble,  and  burning  up  slavery  root 
and  branch  along  its  furious  path.  Such  is  the 
end  lurking  in  and  unfolding  out  of  this  tiny 
starting-point,  and  interlinking  with  it  in  a  kind 
of  circular  chain  of  events,  which  form  one  of 
the  most  important  processes  of  the  World's 
History.  Let  the  reader  note  here  at  the  be 
ginning,  its  inner  propulsion  to  get  around  to  its 
primal  source  in  the  Eastern  States,  its  cyclical 
tendency  to  come  back  to  its  origin  and  to  trans 
form  that. 

A  new  Ten  Years'  War  we  witness  on  our 
Western  Continent,  not  altogether  unlike  the 
far-famed  Trojan  one  ending  in  the  destruction 
of  Ilium  and  the  restoration  of  Helen.  Again 


14  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

every  community  will  muster  its  contingent  of 
soldiers  and  send  them  forth  to  the  war  under 
its  leading  man  or  hero,  to  fight  for  the  great 
cause,  which  meant  in  the  olden  time  that  Hellas 
and  not  Troy  was  to  determine  the  civilization 
of  the  future.  But  now  a  restoration  is  to  take 
place  far  deeper  than  the  Grecian  or  that  of 
Helen ;  the  mighty  struggle  is  now  not  for  the 
ideal  of  beauty  but  for  the  ideal  of  freedom, 
though  its  bearer  be  not  the  most  beautiful 
woman  of  the  world  but  the  homeliest  mortal  of 
God's  creation,  the  black  African,  most  un- 
Grecian  as  to  nose  and  feature  and  foot  and 
form.  No  Iliad  singing  rhythmic  harmonies  and 
moving  with  Olympian  lines  into  plastic  shapes 
of  Heroes  and  Gods,  can  ever  be  born  of  such 
an  ideal.  No  hexametral  roll  attuned  to  the 
sweep  of  sea  and  mountain  and  echoing  the 
subtle  concordance  of  nature  and  soul  in  the 
thousandfold  play  of  its  cadences  can  be  evoked 
out  of  the  prairie-speech  uttered  by  the  chief 
actors  in  this  conflict.  And  yet  an  Iliad  we  may 
call  the  action,  deepened  and  widened  by  the 
stream  of  the  World's  History  down  the  Ages, 
with  its  tale  of  terrible  but  purifying  expe 
riences  sent  upon  the  Nation  by  the  Divine 
Order.  As  the  Greek  during  his  whole  national 
existence  never  could  get  rid  of  the  eternal 
pother  over  Helen,  but  had  to  re-enact  her 
and  hers  in  his  art,  in  his  poetry,  even  in  his 


PAET  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  15 

history  and  religion,  with  the  ever-recurring  con 
flict  between  Greece  and  Asia  from  Troy  till 
Rome,  so  the  American  seemingly  cannot  bring  to 
an  end  the  eternal  pother  over  the  negro  after 
hundreds  of  trials,  but  has  to  spend  his  thought, 
his  treasure  and  his  blood,  till  this  humblest  and 
by  nature  most  servile  of  the  races  of  men  be 
transformed  and  regenerated  into  a  free  being, 
capable  of  free  institutions.  Such  a  task,  not 
willingly  laid  upon  us  by  ourselves  but  by  the 
Spirit  of  total  Man,  persists  in  lowering  over  us, 
not  always  to  our  comfort.  Of  this  task  our 
Ten  Years'  War  is  but  a  stage  already  past,  and 
henceforth  to  be  looked  back  at  and  ruminated 
upon  with  profit,  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  with  in 
terest.  For  History  is  not  merely  a  line  of  suc 
cessive  and  fortuitous  occurrences  in  Time,  but 
the  Soul  of  all  Time,  yea,  the  Soul  which  makes 
Time,  uttering  itself  in  the  events  of  the  past, 
voicing  itself  in  the  deeds  and  thoughts  of  men. 
To  hear  this  voice  and  to  commune  with  its 
meaning,  may  be  regarded  as  the  ultimate 
purpose  of  historic  study. 

I. 

Such  was  the  First  Invasion  of  Kansas  by  the 
Missourians,  the  beginning  of  woes  unnumbered 
to  both  the  participants,  and  not  only  to  them, 
but  to  all  their  countrymen  connected  by  ties  of 
sympathy  and  kinship  ramifying  through  the 


16  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

whole  Nation,  North  and  South.  We  call  it  the 
first,  though  there  was  an  earlier  foray  in  the 
preceding  year  (November,  1854)  when  a  band 
of  Missourians  crossed  the  border  and  voted  for 
the  Congressional  delegate,  Whitfield,  who,  how 
ever,  was  not  opposed  by  the  people  of  the 
Territory.  Thus  it  was  a  peaceful  affair  though 
a  wrong  with  a  nemesis  lurking  in  it,  even  if  for 
the  present  smothered.  But  now  in  1855,  the 
inhabitants  of  Kansas  want  their  own  Legisla 
ture,  which  is  their  right,  and  get  ready  to 
resist,  whereat  Bellona  unties  her  bag  of  ills, 
not  to  be  tied  up  again  for  ten  weary,  desperate 
years. 

The  Invasion  was  an  attempt  to  steal  a  right, 
the  majority's  right  of  determining  their  insti 
tutions,  the  right  of  all  others  fundamental 
and  peculiar  to  America's  government,  mak 
ing  her  truly  self-governed,  and  constituting 
the  very  symbol  of  her  spirit,  of  her  self -hood. 
Such  was  the  portentous  theft  committed  in 
Kansas  on  that  spring-day,  really  our  Ameri 
can  Rape  of  Helen,  done  by  those  Missouri 
borderers  who  tried  to  carry  off  by  violence 
beautiful  Freedom  in  the  shape  of  the  ballot, 
far  more  beautiful  to  Americans  than  beauti 
ful  Helen  of  old  Greece,  and  we  believe 
more  virtuous  in  spite  of  many  insidious  at 
tempts  at  her  prostitution.  And  yet  the  fact 
must  be  recorded  that  these  assailants  of  Free- 


PART  I.  -  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  17 

dom's  honor  were  Americans,  speaking  English, 
peculiarly  the  language  of  Freedom,  just  as 
those  old  Trojans,  the  captors  and  detainers  of 
beautiful  Helen,  were  of  Hellenic  blood,  and 
spoke  Greek,  peculiarly  the  language  of  Beauty. 
So  the  old  and  the  new,  the  first  and  the  last, 
the  Alpha  and  the  Omega  of  our  Occidental 
History  come  together  and  interlink,  rounding 
themselves  out  into  that  oft-noted  cycle  of  events 
which  therein  are  to  be  seen  not  merely  moving 
forward  to  the  end,  but  also  going  backward  to  the 
beginning.  Only  thus  can  we  behold  the  present 
orbing  itself  with  its  own  creative  past  and 
completing  a  great  historic  process,  which,  while 
it  runs  with  Time  on  the  one  side,  runs  against 
Time  on  the  other,  returning  to  its  starting-point 
and  therein  revealing  that  periodicity,  which 
from  hoary  Egypt  till  now  has  been  felt  to  be  a 
manifestation  of  the  omnipotent  hand  control 
ling  the  World's  occurrences. 

In  a  sense  it  may  be  said  that  the  ideal  of 
Freedom  has  hovered  before  man  since  the  be 
ginning  of  History,  and  that  it  is,  accordingly, 
nothing  new.  Still  it  has  been  developing  all 
the  while  and  is  ever  taking  new  and  more  ad 
equate  forms.  This  last  or  American  form  of 
the  long  conflict  between  Freedom  and  Slavery 
puts  its  main  stress  upon  the  political  institution, 
and  regards  the  State  as  genetic  or  creative,  that 
is,  as  productive  of  other  States.  Now  this  ge- 

2 


18  THE  TEtf  YEARS'   WAR. 

netic  State  or  Federal  Union,  through  its  constitu 
tion  was  made  to  be  productive  of  two  kinds  of 
States,  free  and  slave.  This  dualism  is  what  is 
threatening  to  break  asunder  the  Federal  Union 
when  the  Ten  Years'  War  opens,  whose  conflict 
may,  therefore,  be  said  to  lie  between  Free- 
Stateism  and  Slave-Stateism.  And  the  future 
problem,  which  the  popular  mind  (our  American 
Folk-Soul)  is  in  deep  self-communion  turning 
over  within  itself,  may  be  summed  up  in  the 
question :  Shall  henceforth  our  State-creating 
Union  be  the  parent  of  free  States  or  of  slave 
States,  or  still  of  both?  This  we  might  call  the 
theme  or  argument  of  our  American  Iliad,  in 
which  as  in  the  old  Greek  one,  through  countless 
ills  of  both  sides  the  Will  of  Zeus  was  accom 
plished. 

It  is  evident  that  the  problem  turns  upon 
Labor,  and  the  two  kinds  of  States  ground  them 
selves  upon  the  two  kinds  of  Labor,  that  of  the 
freeman  and  that  of  the  bondman.  The  Free- 
State  is  really  the  Free-Labor  State,  and  the 
Slave-State  is  the  Slave-Labor  State,  though  in 
the  latter  actual  slavery  was  confined  to  the 
black  race.  Or,  to  reach  down  to  the  depths  of 
the  human  soul,  to  the  psychical  being  of  man, 
we  must  conceive  that  all  Labor  is  an  act  of  Will, 
whose  freedom  it  is  just  the  function  of  the  State 
to  secure  through  its  laws.  But  now  we  have  a 
State  which  is  to  secure  a  Will  enslaved,  con- 


PART  /."—  THE  FIRST  INVASION  19 

trndicting    therein    its  own   essence.     And  the 

\D 

American  Union  is  to  continue  bringing  forth 
such  States  —  or  is  not  —  which  shall  it  be? 
Such  a  question  the  American  Folk-Soul  has 
propounded  to  itself,  sounding  its  deepest 
abysses  for  an  answer.  But  what  oracle  dwells 
there  within  to  deliver  such  a  response?  Truly 
that  Delphic  voice  which  once  spoke  at  rocky 
Pytho  the  words  of  the  God  is  no  longer  audible 
on  the  outside,  but  has  taken  up  its  modern 
abode  in  the  Folk-Soul,  which  receives  the  divine 
impress  directly  and  acts  from  within,  according 
to  conviction.  Such  is  the  new  Zeus,  not  quite 
the  Homeric  one,  yet  descended  from  him  and 
inter-related  with  him  through  the  successive 
ages. 

The  American  Folk-Soul  is,  then,  going  to 
school  and  is  working  at  its  problem  which  it 
sees  but  cannot  yet  solve.  Kansas  is  about  to 
give  the  first  lesson,  the  preliminary  course 
lasting  some  three  years  or  more;  such  was  the 
discipline  for  the  great  coming  task.  But  who 
prescribes  this  task?  Again  we  have  to  go 
behind  the  curtain  of  the  thronging,  tumultuous, 
distracting  events  of  Time,  and  glimpse  the 
Spirit  busied  there;  call  it  Civilization,  Progress, 
World-Spirit,  or  even  Zeus,  if  you  like  Homer's 
poetic  way  of  imagining  the  divine  order  which 
controls  History.  For  the  old  Greek  bard  also 
has  his  two  worlds;  the  lower  one  of  mortals 


20  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

around  and  in  Troy,  full  of  war,  confusion,  and 
cnprice;  then  the  upper  Olympian  one,  the 
serene  abode  of  the  Gods,  above  whom  sits  Zeus 
Supreme,  voicing  when  at  his  best  not  only  the 
soul  of  that  little  speck  of  Trojan  Time,  but  of 
all  Time. 

In  some  such  way  we' would  fain  impress  our 
reader  with  the  thought  that  this  Kansas  conflict 
is  not  a  mere  bubble  on  the  stream,  of  the 
World's  History,  rising  and  bursting  in  the 
passing  moment,  but  is  that  etream  itself,  the 
whole  of  it,  for  the  present,  till  it  flows  else 
whither  on  its  ceaseless  sweep  to  its  goal. 

II. 
Having  thus  mustered   the   one    side   of    the 

O 

Kansas  conflict,  and  caused  it  to  pass  in  review, 
we  must  plainly  do  the  same  service  for  the 
other  side.  The  assailants  with  their  principle 
have  been  witnessed  in  their  march  across  the 
border;  but  who  arc  the  assailed,  and  whence 
and  for  what  purpose  have  they  come  hither  to 
the  untamed  prairie  and  wilderness?  Some 
account  of  these  hardy  spirits  is  next  due. 

After  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill, 
the  President  of  the  United  States  had  declared 
the  territory  of  Kansas  open  for  settlement  on 
May  30th,  1854.  At  once  emigrants  began  to 
pour  in  from  all  parts  of  the  countnr,  for  the 
purpose  of  occupying  the  land.  By  far  the 


PAR  T  /.  —  THE  FIR  S  T  INVA  SI  ON.  '2 1 

largest  portion  came  from  the  Northern  States 
of  the  West,  which  always  had  its  pioneers 
whose  nature  was  to  tire  of  the  more  thickly 
settled  districts  and  to  go  forth  again  to  the 
frontier,  as  they  and  their  ancestors  had  done 
for  generations.  As  we  have  seen  in  more  recent 
times  the  large  crowds  ready  to  rush  across  the 
border  of  Oklahoma,  when  this  territory  was 
thrown  open  for  settlement,  so  we  may  conceive 
the  numbers  ready  to  cross  into  Kansas  in  the 
spring  and  summer  of  1854. 

These  early  emigrants  were  largely  though  not 
wholly  from  the  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois 
and  Iowa.  Nearly  all  of  them  came  singly,  or 
in  small  neighborhood  groups.  It  was  in  no 
sense  an  organized  movement.  Each  man 
expected  to  enter  his  tract  of  land  and  start  to 
work  on  his  own  account  and  in  his  own  way, 
clearing  the  soil  and  putting  in  his  crop;  then 
later  he  intended  to  send  for  family  and  friends. 
It  was  an  individual  emigration,  this  of 
the  West  to  Kansas.  These  men  were  the 
first  on  the  ground,  and  rapidly  grew  in  number. 
Tumbling  over  one  another  they  come  like  a 
flock  of  blackbirds,  the  rearmost  flying  above  the 
heads  of  the  rest  and  lighting  down  foremost,  till 
these  find  themselves  again  in  the  rear,  when 
once  more  they  rise  in  flight  for  the  front.  Such 
were  the  human  waves  which  came  rollino-  out  of 

o 

the  Western  States  over  the  Kansas  border  when 


22  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

the  barrier  was  removed.  We  may  deem  it  an 
other  manifestation  of  that  old  Aryan  instinct 
which  has  driven  westward  now  for  thousands  of 
years,  propelling  its  migrating  peoples  out  of 
Asia,  through  Europe,  across  the  Atlantic  to 
America,  in  a  succession  of  Oceanic  undulations 
which  have  swept  over  the  Alleghenies,  and 
leaping  the  Mississippi,  have  reached  the  boun- 
darv  of  Kansas,  whose  plains  are  now  to  be  the 
scene  of  their  last  great  overflow. 

They  found  the  land  already  surveyed  by  the 
Government  and  divided  into  sections  and 
quarter  sections,  each  of  which  might  become  a 
farm  with  its  industrious  tenant,  the  like  of 
whom  had  already  filled  the  North-West  with 
a  thrifty,  self-reliant  population,  all  of  them 
makers  of  their  own  institutions  and  ready  to 
fight  for  these,  if  the  call  came.  This  is  the 
class  of  men  that  began  to  settle  down  over 
Eastern  Kansas,  clustering  at  first  along  its  navi 
gable  streams.  Each  little  farm  became  a  cell 
in  an  ever-increasing  honeycomb,  and  contained 
a  busy  bee  seeking  to  gather  the  honey  of  in- 

J  O  cj  *> 

dustry,  but  prepared  to  fly  out  and  sting  his  foe 
if  disturbed  in  his  work  or  his  freedom.  Then 
these  bees  made  a  hive  and  many  hives,  which 
would  swarm  forth  together  against  their  trembler 
with  wonderful  celerity  and  undaunted  courage. 
In  1854  already  this  mass  of  farms  began  to 
array  themselves  against  the  Missouri  border  in 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  23 

serried  ranks  one  behind  the  other,  not  without 
many  a  contest  over  titles  to  the  land  which  the 
Missourians  claimed  to  have  pre-empted.  But 
the  agricultural  fortification  of  the  country  went 
on  till  it  was  inexpugnable,  since  each  of  these 
small  homes  held  one  worker  and  fighter  at 
least,  and  sometimes  several.  Such  was  the 
wall  of  living  valor  with  its  free  labor  which  was 
built  or  rather  built  itself  as  a  bulwark  against 
the  slave-bringing  invaders. 

This  is,  then,  the  first,  the  unorganized,  in 
dividual  migration.  But  there  is  another  which 
is  organized,  having  a  different  source,  New 
England,  and  a  different  character.  The  leader 
appears  who  establishes  his  Emigrant  Aid  So 
ciety  for  the  purpose  of  colonizing  Kansas.  The 
name  of  this  leader  rises  into  great  prominence, 
so  that  the  whole  country,  North  and  South, 
knows  of  Eli  Thayer.  His  first  band,  29  strong, 
left  Boston  July  17th,  1854,  with  a  most  lavish 
expenditure  of  noise.  A  great  multitude 
gathered  at  the  railroad  station  to  witness  their 
departure,  which  fact  indicates  that  the  fight  was 
already  expected  in  Kansas.  The  cheering  crowds 
lined  the  tracks  for  several  blocks.  The  coun 
try  through  which  the  train  passed  was  every- 
were  roused,  and  ovations  were  tendered  at 
several  cities  to  these  soldiers  going  to  the  war. 
A  fortnight  after  leaving  Boston  they  were  in 
Kansas,  and  August  1st  is  given  as  the  date  of 


24  THE  TEN"  YEARS9    WAR. 

their  founding  of  Lawrence,  destined  for  years 
to  be  the  storm-center  of  the  Territory.  This 
first  colony  was  soon  followed  by  others  from  the 
Eastern  States. 

Such  was  the  deafening  flourish  of  trumpets 
echoing  from  one  end  of  the  land  to  the  other, 
which  heralded  the  advent  into  Kansas  of  Eli 
Thayer's  New  England  regiment  of  29.  From 
the  prodigious  hubbub  made  over  them,  people 
have  supposed  they  were  another  small  Mara- 
thouiaa  band  marching  forth  alone  to  combat 
the  countless  host  of  slavery.  But  the  fact  is 
they  found  already  hundreds  of  settlers  in  Kan 
sas,  mostly  from  the  West-Northern  States.  The 
latter  differed  from  their  East-Northern  neigh 
bors  in  a  number  of  points,  but  both  resolutely 
agreed  on  one  point:  Kansas  must  be  a  Free- 
State.  Moreover  these  Westerners  were  fighters, 
no  doubt  about  it;  they  came  rather  expecting 
a  fight;  .they  were  chosen,  by  a  kind  of  Natural 
Selection,  to  migrate  to  Kansas,  every  man  with 
his  trusty  rifle  in  hand.  At  the  same  time  they 
were  farmers,  and  tradesmen,  and  artisans,  de 
voted  to  the  works  of  peace,  but  ready  for  war  if 
the  time  called  for  it.  A  strong  courageous  indi- 

O  o 

viduality  they  possessed,  otherwise  they  would  not. 
have  ventured  into  this  troubled  borderland. 
They  remained  the  large  majority  of  the  Free- 
State  people  of  Kansas  and  fought  her  battles 
during  the  whole  Ten  Years'  War. 


PA  /?  T  I  —  THE  FIE  ST  INVA  SI  ON.  25 

In  such  fashion  we  must  conceive  the  two  great 
migrations,  the  unorganized  and  organized,  the 
one  from  the  West  the  other  from  the  East. 
Both  of  them  continued  their  activity  for  years 
and  were  united  in  the  one  great  purpose  of 
making  Kansas  a  Free-State,  which  purpose  was 
uppermost  in  each.  But  outside  of  this  supreme 
point  of  unity  there  were  many  differences. 
The  Westerners  as  a  whole  were  hardly  anti- 
slavery,  they  disliked  the  negro,  believed  his 
presence  to  be  a  curse  to  the  white  man,  and 
were  determined  to  keep  not  only  the  slave  but 
the  free  African  out  of  the  new  State.  In  fact 
many  non-slaveholders  from  the  South  who 
came  to  Kansas  changed  to  Free-State  men  when 
they  heard  this  view;  Eli  Thayersays  a  majority 
of  them  did  so.  However  strange  the  expres 
sion  may  seem  to  us  now,  it  is  probable  that  the 
larger  number  of  these  early  emigrants  were 
pro-slavery  Free-State  men.  They  were  inclined 
to  believe  that  the  natural  condition  of  the  negro 
was  that  of  a  slave,  but  he  must  stay  in  the  old 
Slave  States,  and  not  come  either  as  freeman  or 
slave  into  this  our  white  man's  territory.  This 
consciousness  we  must  understand,  as  it  alone 
explains  much  of  the  political  conduct  of  these 
early  settlers.  Their  first  constitution  allowed 
no  black  man,  bond  or  free,  to  abide  within  the 
State. 

The  New  England  emigrants,  though  fewer  in 


26  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

number,  had  the  advantage  in  education,  in 
organizing  power  and  in  the  ability  to  use  all  the 
modern  implements  of  civilization.  Hence  they 
were  the  leaders  from  the  start.  In  one  of  the 
earliest  lot  of  colonists  came  Charles  Robinson, 
whom  Thayer  first  saw  in  one  of  his  New  Eng 
land  meetings,  and  engaged  as  agent  of  the  Emi 
grant  Aid  Company.  Of  all  the  men  who  won 
distinction  in  this  Kansas  epic,  Robinson  would 
have  our  vote  to  be  pedestaled  as  hero.  Not 
Lane,  not  John  Brown,  but  Robinson  was  the 
savior  of  Kansas.  He  was  the  born  leader, 
gauging  aright  the  people  whom  he  was  to  lead, 
what  they  would  and  would  not  do.  He  saw 
clearly  that  he  could  concentrate  the  most  diverse 
followers,  from  North  and  South,  from  East  and 
West,  upon  one  thing  and  one  thing  only :  Kan 
sas  must  be  a  Free-State.  Moreover  Robinson 
was  an  institutional  man,  he  had  untold  trouble 
not  merely  with  the  pro-slavery  enemy,  but  with 
the  anti-slavery  revolutionists  and  anarchists. 
The  Garrisonians  denounced  him  and  sought  to 
nullify  his  work.  But  he,  though  an  abolition 
ist  in  conviction,  knew  that  his  prime  duty  was 
to  pluck  the  fruit  within  his  reach.  This  he  did 
with  a  determination  and  success  which  we  may 
fairly  call  heroic. 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  27 

III. 

But  the  chief  difference  between  the  unorgan 
ized  and  the  organized  emigrants  was  that  the 
former  had  no  means  of  reaching  the  great 
public  of  the  North,  of  whose  cause  they 
were  the  outpost.  Their  sufferings  and  their 
deeds  would  have  remained  quite  unvoiced, 
had  it  not  been  for  those  tonguey  Yankees  with 
their  unparalleled  gift  of  making  themselves  heard. 
These  could  all  write  and  send  letters  home, 
which  would  get  into  print.  They  were  not  only 
well-schooled  in  speech,  but  had  a  native  gift  for 
talking  and  scribbling.  Herein  they  were  true  to 
their  inheritance.  The  early  Puritans  have  set 
down  their  spirit's  struggles  and  their  history 
more  completely  than  any  other  recorded  colony  ; 
not  even  the  Greek  who  certainly  had  a  tongue, 
ever  used  it  with  such  an  unceasing  outpour,  as 
the  New  Englander.  Moreover  the  Emigrant 
Aid  Society  had  connections  with  the  most 
important  newspapers  of  the  Eastern  States. 
Eli  Thayer  knew  Horace  Greeley  and  could  set 
that  mighty  fog-horn  of  the  Atlantic,  the  New 
York  Tribune,  to  blowing  its  very  best,  sending 
its  reverberations  to  almost  every  hamlet  of  the 
North.  Here  lay  Thayer's  greatest  work.  He  had 
a  chief  hand  in  organizing  that  vast  reduplicating 
and  often  magnifying  machine,  the  newspaper 
press,  in  the  interest  of  the  Kansas  conflict. 


28  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

Then  the  New  England  clergymen  could  not  be 
kept  silent,  but  a  continuous  line  of  pulpits 
reaching  across  the  Free  States  from  Maine  to 
California,  would  become  resonant  with  vocal 
thunder  over  Kansas.  Here  again  one  voice  was 
pre-eminent,  that  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who 
likewise  employed  the  printing  press  to  redu 
plicate  his  eloquence  through  the  land. 

To  be  sure,  there  was  opposition.  It  was  said 
that  preachers  should  not  mix  in  politics,  but 
leave  that  field  wholly  to  the  sinner.  Much  was 
made  of  the  fact  when  Beecher  subscribed  a 
Sharpe's  rifle  for  the  defense  of  Lawrence,  and 
specially  for  terrifying  the  Missourians,  who  re 
garded  it  as  a  kind  of  magical,  self-firing  gun  cap 
able  of  finding  its  mark,  which  was  an  invader's 
breast,  at  almost  any  distance.  The  fabulous 
qualities  of  this  weapon  played  havoc  with  the 
imaginations  of  the  ignorant  borderers.  This 
mythical  tendency  of  theirs  was  carefully  nursed 
by  the  cunning  Yankees,  so  that  Robinson  could 
say,  when  he  obtained  a  consignment  of  Sharpe's 
rifles:  Now  we  shall  win  without  shedding  a  drop 
of  blood.  Indeed  one  cannot  help  thinking  that 
imagination  has  been  playing  around  that  grand 

n  i       */        o  t^ 

army  of  29  whom  we  saw  setting  out  from  Boston 
as  ordinary  men,  but  whom  the  alchemy  of  Time 
has  transformed  into  giants,    veritable    Atlases 
each  capable  of  upholding,  if  not  the  world,   at 
least  the  Free  State  of  Kansas. 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  rXVASIOtf.  29 

But,  strange  to  say,  Thayer's  chief  enemies 
in  the  East  were  the  abolitionists,  especially  the 
Garrisonians,  who  were  thorough-going  disuuion- 
ists  and  believed  in  revolution.  Phillips,  Garri 
son  and  the  other  followers  sought  in  every  way 
to  discredit  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society.  But 
Thayer  showed  himself  their  superior  all  along 
the  line,  approved  himself  an  institutional  man, 
and  so  won  the  popular  heart.  He  struck  the 
deepest  chord  of  the  Folk-soul  of  the  North  in 
saying:  No  more  Slave-States,  but  it  must  be 
done  by  constitutional  means.  Moreover  he 
goes  to  the  people  direct,  and  enlists  them  in  his 
cause;  he  has  little  faith  in  Congress  and  its 
politicians  as  a  means  for  freeing  Kansas.  We 
have  already  had  a  sufficiency  of  resolutions,  of 
enactments,  of  provisos.  Anyhow,  legislators 
go  back  to  the  people  as  their  source,  and 
this  source  Thayer  proposed  to  reach  directly. 
He  believed  in  the  Union,  but  this  Union,  the 
mother  of  States,  must  give  birth  to  no  more 
slave-children;  it  is  our  first  duty  now,  in  this 
age,  to  see  that  her  progeny  henceforth  be  born 
free. 

There  has  been  some  controversy  over  these 
two  kinds  of  migration  to  Kansas.  Which  did 
the  work  and  made  it  a  Free-State?  The  East 
and  the  West  have  been  inclined  to  lock  horns 
on  this  and  on  other  matters.  It  is  evident, 
however,  that  both  were  necessary  parts  of  one 


30  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAK. 

great  process,  the  unorganized  and  the  organized 
movements  were  complements  of  each  other. 
The  unorganized  movement  rested  upon  indi 
vidual  initiative,  its  irregular  members  were  first 
on  the  ground,  and  that  too  in  considerable 
numbers  and  ever-increasing.  Says  one  of  these 
earliest  emigrants  in  an  address  many  years  after 
wards  :  "At  this  early  day  (June-July,  1854) 
emigrants  from  every  Western  State  were  pour 
ing  in.  We  (in  Kansas)  had  not  yet  heard  of 
the  New  England  Emigrant  Aid  Society."  (S. 
N.  Wood,  from  Ohio.)  As  already  noted, 
Thayer's  first  installment  of  29,  reached  Kansas 
in  August,  and  they  found  hundreds  already 
there.  Such  were  the  materials,  quite  leaderless 
and  voiceless,  for  organization.  This  is  what 
came  in  with  the  New  England  emigrants,  the 
result  of  superior  education.  The  Yankees  were 
used  to  the  town-meeting  and  a  highly  developed 
communal  life,  hence  they  organized  easily,  fell 
naturally  into  an  ordered,  yet  throbbing  civic 
activity.  They  started  at  once  to  found  towns, 
of  which  the  first  and  most  famous  was  Lawrence 
with  its  schools,  its  newspapers,  its  conventions, 
its  tumultuous  life  full  of  manifold  fatalities. 
The  town  was  the  embodiment  of  the  Yankee 
idea  and  always  drew  the  fire  of  the  Southerners  ; 
it  was  the  center  around  which  the  early  his 
tory  of  Kansas  swirls  and  was  born  talking 
and  writing,  to  fire  the  Northern  heart,  which 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  31 

was  ready  to  thrill  in  response  to  the 
tones  of  the  vast  megaphone,  the  newspaper 
press  of  the  East,  set  to  vibrating  to  the 
cries  of  Lawrence.  It  is  curious  that  Thayer,  a 
tireless  talker  himself  and  doing  his  chief  work 
through  talk  and  through  exciting  talk  in  others, 
written,  printed,  as  well  as  spoken,  disparages 
talk  in  his  book  (The  Kansas  Crusade),  and  sets 
forth  a  curious  psychology  on  the  subject.  ' «  The 
best  men  in  our  cause,"  he  declares,  "  are  those 
who  say  little  or  nothing."  The  trouble  with 
the  Garrisonian  abolitionists,  he  thinks,  is  that 
they  spend  all  their  feeling  in  speech  and  not  in 
action.  The  deep  sense  of  wrong  should  drive  the 
arm  and  not  the  tongue.  The  end  of  emotion  is 
an  act,  not  a  word,  and  so  on.  It  is  well  for 
Thayer  that  he  did  not  follow  his  own  prescrip 
tion.  For  his  true  work  lay  not  in  the  few 
hundred  colonists  he  sent  to  Kansas,  but  in  the 
fact  that  he  set  every  tongue  in  the  North  (and 
in  the  South  also)  to  wagging  upon  this  subject  of 
Kansas.  Undoubtedly  the  country  was  ready  to 
talk  and  to  be  talked  to  about  this  matter,  for  the 
secretly  fermenting  Folk-Soul  of  America  was 
resolving  that  Mother  Union  should  bear  no 
more  slave-children  as  States.  The  North,  now 
having  the  greater  strength  in  votes,  had  already 
decided  to  enforce  that  principle  peacefully  by 
ballot.  Doubtless  too  it  was  getting  prepared, 
in  the  obscure  and  unconscious  depths  of  its 


32  THE  TEX  YE  Alt  8*    WAR. 

moral  conviction,  to  follow  up  the  ballot  by  the 
deed  of  arms,  if  necessary.  So  we  may  now 
say,  looking  backwards. 

On  account  of  the  noise  made  over  it  on  the 
hustings,  in  the  pulpit,  and  in  the  newspaper, 
the  Emigrant  Aid  Society  became  for  years  the 
target  of  the  batteries  of  the  South  and  its  sup 
porters.  President  Pierce,  Douglas,  as  well  as 
the  Southerners  talked  back  at  it,  with  a  prodig 
ious  outlay  of  vituperative  eloquence.  It  was 
deemed  the  cause  of  all  the  Kansas  troubles.  A 
handbill  was  circulated  in  Missouri  offering  a 
reward  for  Thayer's  head.  But  Thayer  stayed 
in  the  East,  and  kept  his  talking  mill  at  work, 
which  was  altogether  the  most  effective  thing  he 
could  do.  All  the  talk  of  the  South  was  but  the 
noise  of  a  tiny  pop-gun  compared  to  the  reverbera 
tion  of  the  Northern  columbiads  echoing  from 
the  Atlantic  over  the  Alleghenies  through  the 
Mississippi  Valley  and  the  region  of  the  Lakes, 
and  stirring  the  Folk-Soul  to  kindred  thrills. 

Such  is  the  process  which  has  now  started  and 
will  continue  throughout  this  conflict  in  Kansas. 
Her  shrieks,  caused  by  the  tortures  of  the  in 
vaders  with  the  connivance  and  even  instigation 
of  the  Washington  government,  will  be  reverber 
ated  from  the  press  and  made  to  vibrate  in  every 
Northern  heart,  which  is  thus  getting  prepared 
for  the  mightier  task  that  the  World-Spirit  has 
laid  upon  the  Nation. 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION".  33 

IV. 

The  reader  may  now  see  the  two  conflicting 
elements,  Free-Stateism  and  Slave-Stateism, 
which,  though  long  since  enemies  with  threaten 
ing  mien  against  each  other,  have  gone  to  the 
New  West,  even  to  the  newest  part  of  it,  and 
have  there  grappled  in  desperate  struggle.  It  is 
evident  that  the  settlers  who  have  come  into  the 
Territory  from  the  North,  and  whose  funda 
mental  right  has  been  so  defiantly  violated,  must 
get  themselves  into  some  kind  of  organization, 
semi-political  and  also  semi-military,  which  will 
hold  the  longitudinal  line  of  settlements  against 
the  attacks  from  the  Missouri  border.  For  the 
line  between  Free-State  and  Slave-State  no  longer 
is  to  run  latitudinally  from  East  to  West,  as  it 
has  hitherto  done  in  the  State-producing  process, 
but  is  to  make  a  sudden  deflection  and  run  longi 
tudinally  from  North  to  South,  breaking  the 
westward  movement  of  slavery  just  along  the 
Missouri  border.  Here,  then,  the  Free-State 
men  of  Kansas  are  massing  themselves  in  a 
kind  of  living  human  battlement,  as  yet  more 
by  instinct  than  by  conscious  purpose  and  order. 
The  Southerners  on  their  side  undertake  to  push 
this  longitudinal  line  around  up  to  Nebraska, 
making  it  still  latitudinal,  and  dividing  the 
country  still  into  the  two  kinds  of  States,  slave 
and  free.  Therein,  however,  they  took  up 

3 


34  THE   TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

the  gage  of  battle  with  the  World-Spirit, 
with  Civilization  herself,  or  in  Homeric  concep 
tion,  with  Olympian  Zeus,  who  had  decreed  in 
the  council  of  the  Gods  assembled  anew  for  our 
American  Iliad  that  the  Federal  Union  must  stop 
producing  Slave-States :  which  decree  was  now 
being  voiced  thousandfold  and  thundered  through 
the  land,  thereby  impressing  itself  upon  every 
Northern  heart  and  becoming  the  deep  aspiration 
as  well  as  the  strong  resolution  of  the  Folk-Soul. 
Very  significant,  therefore,  is  this  new  direction 
of  the  boundary-line  separating  North  and  South 
with  a  rampart  of  strong  bodies  and  even  stronger 
spirits,  which  we  may  deem  a  living  embankment 
for  stopping  the  further  overflow  of  slavery  into 
the  Territories  of  the  United  States. 

The  next  thing,  then,  is  to  see  these  emigrants, 
coming  individually  or  in  little  bands,  organize 
themselves  into  a  great  totality  with  a  common 
purpose.  They  lie  at  first  scattered  over  Eastern 
Kansas  on  their  farms  and  in  their  little  towns 
an  incoherent  mass,  not  easy  to  bring  into  unity 
and  order.  Separated  from  one  another,  not 
only  spatially  but  mentally,  coming  from  every 
quarter  of  the  Union,  South  and  North,  East 
and  West,  they  were  full  of  mutual  repugnances, 
jealousies,  prejudices;  a  collection  of  self-repel 
lent  atoms,  quite  as  ready  to  fight  one  another 
as  the  invaders,  they  seemed  an  easy  prey  to  the 
better  organized  Missourians. 


PAET  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  35 

There  was  indeed  only  one  thing  to  be 
done.  That  was  to  form  a  counter-organiza 
tion  upon  the  one  point  about  which  the}7 
were  all  united :  Kansas  must  be  a  Free-State. 
Around  this  center  the  hitherto  centrifugal 
atoms  could  be  brought  to  gather  and  to 
get  into  order,  yea  into  a  line  of  battle 
against  the  invaders.  During  the  summer  and 
fall  (1855)  after  the  invasion  this  unification 
was  taking  place  with  no  little  hubbub,  and 
speechifying,  and  passion.  Unquestionably  the 
leader  of  it  was  Charles  Robinson  who  saw 
distinctly  the  work  to  b3  done  and  how  to 
do  it.  The  position  which  Kansas  now  takes 
through  his  influence  made  her  a  Free-State, 
and  she  held  it  substantially  till  she  entered  the 
Union. 

Ere  we  pass  on,  we  may  take  a  glance  at  the 
Territorial  Legislature  which  was  elected  by  the 
Missourians.  It  met  and  ousted  all  the  Free- 
State  men  except  one,  who  soon  quit  in  disgust. 
It  rendered  itself  infamous  by  passing  an  in 
human  slave-code,  but  this  was  of  no  practical 
account,  since  there  were  very  few  slaves  in 
Kansas,  and  slaveholders  could  not  be  induced  to 
risk  such  valuable  property  in  the  present  uncer 
tain  hurly-burly.  In  fact  the  Legislature  dropped 
into  insignificance.  It  moved  the  capital  from 
Pawnee  to  Shawnee  close  to  the  Missouri  border, 
where  its  members  could  be  nearer  home  and 


36  THE  TEN  YE  A  PS'    WAE. 

surer  of  personal  safety.  From  this  act  came 
the  breach  with  Governor  Keeder,  the  most 
important  event  of  its  life. 

Lawrence  is  really  the  center  of  the  Kansas 
movement  at  this  time,  being  for  a  while  the 
very  pivot  of  the  conflict  of  the  epoch  between 
Free-Stateism  and  Slave-Stateism.  It  may  be 
said  that  the  World's  History  just  now  is  present 
and  at  work  in  that  little  Kansas  town,  for  the 
two  sides  of  the  coming  struggle  distinctly 
define  themselves  there,  and  arm  themselves  for 
the  onset.  The  agitation  was  furious,  and  could 
not  stop ;  the  unorganized  mass  with  its  recalci 
trant  units  had  to  be  churned  together  till  it  ^ot 

O  o 

organized  under  an  idea  and  could  be  handled  by 
its  leader.  During  these  months  there  was  such 
an  incessant  whirl  of  conventions,  celebrations, 
elections,  consultations  that  the  head  grows  di/zy 
in  trying  to  follow  all  the  eddies  of  the  mael 
strom.  People  would  not  stay  apart  but  seemed 
unhappy  if  alone.  The  atoms  were  whirled  in  a 
kind  of  vortex,  thereby  being  fused  and  asso 
ciated  for  the  grand  purpose.  But  the  outer 
scene  is  like  the  fermentation  of  a  huge  beer-vat, 
with  thousands  of  bubbles  ever  rising,  colliding, 

o  '  C  ' 

and  exploding.  Who  can  count  them,  not  to 
speak  of  getting  them  into  any  connected  scheme 
in  their  infinitesimal  caprices?  Surely  a  Power  is 
in  possession  of  these  restless  souls  coalescing, 
separating,  coalescing  again  in  never-ceasing 


PART  I.—  THE  FIE  ST  INVA  SI  ON.  3  7 

round;  the  Strong  Hand  of  the  Ages  is  driving 
them  within  and  without,  churning  them  out  of 
their  chaos  into  something  like  a  cosmical  order, 
surely  not  without  design. 

In  such  a  seething  mass  where  everything  is 
fluid  and  in  the  process  of  formation,  we  shall 
select  and  hold  fast  to  the  following  main  events. 

1.  The  work  of  the  Missourians  must  be  coun 
teracted  by  setting  up  the  machinery  of  a  State- 
government  and  applying  for  its  admission  to  the 
Union.  That  would  violate  no  law,  yet  would 
show  the  Territorial  Legislature  thoroughly  dis 
credited  by  the  People,  who  now  would  have  their 
own  political  organization  round  which  they  could 
rally.  This  scheme  came  from  Robinson's  brain, 
and  must  be  pronounced  very  adroit.  It  acted 
as  a  continuous  checkmate  upon  the  Missourians, 
who  sought  in  various  ways  to  destroy  it,  but 
never  succeeded.  Its  supporters  avoided  any 
clash  with  the  United  States  Government,  or 
even  with  the  Territorial  Legislature,  whose 
enactments  it  quietly  let  bubble  off  and  burst  in 
the  air. 

This  we  shall  call  Robinson's  anti-government, 
a  kind  of  government  taking  the  place  of  gov 
ernment,  a  most  ingenious  contrivance  made  to 
keep  alive  the  right  which  was  illegal  against  the 
wrong  which  was  legal.  Thus  we  behold  two 
governments  over  the  same  people  at  work  in 
mutual  counteraction :  the  letter  of  the  Law 


38  THE  TKN  YEARS'   WAIL 

without  the  spirit  made  the  one,  and  the  spirit 
of  the  Law  without  the  letter  made  the  other, 
and  the  two  fight  and  keep  fighting.  Strange 
contest  is  it  for  us  to  witness :  a  body  without 
a  soul  versus  a  soul  without  a  body.  Desperate 
is  their  struggle;  which  will  win?  That  is  yet  to 
be  told. 

2.  While  Robinson  was  harmonizing  all  the 
discordant  elements  and  concentrating  the  People 
upon  the  one  great  object,  a  man  appeared  at 
Lawrence  (summer  of  1855)  who  was  destined 
to  give  him  much  trouble  by  running  a  negative, 
counteracting  thread  through  all  his  efforts  and 
those  of  the  Free-State  men.  This  was  James 
II.  Lane,  who,  born  in  Kentucky,  had  emigrated 
to  Indiana,  from  which  State  he  had  been  ap 
pointed  Colonel  of  a  regiment  in  the  Mexican 
war,  and  afterwards  had  been  elected  Lieutenant 
Governor  of  the  State;  also  he  had  served  as  a 
representative  in  Congress.  The  first  note  of 
opposition  to  the  general  movement  initiated  and 
conducted  by  Robinson  came  from  a  small  con 
vention  (June  27th,  1855)  calling  itself  demo 
cratic,  of  which  Lane  was  the  leading  spirit,  and 
which  resolved  that  what  Kansas  most  needed 
was  "  an  early  organization  of  the  Democratic 
party."  Lane  at  this  time  was  pro-slavery  in 
sentiment,  and  maintained  the  right  as  well  as 
the  legality  of  the  Territorial  Legislature;  he 
held  that  Kansas  was  destined  to  become  a  Slave 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  39 

State.  This  last  doctrine  particularly  was  not 
acceptable  to  the  majority  of  Democrats  now  in 
Kansas.  So  Lane  began  to  veer  about,  and  was 
soon  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  Free-State  peo 
ple,  in  which  he  had  the  most  unique  of  all 
these  Kansas  careers,  as  he  was  the  most 
unique  character  in  the  whole  borderland. 

It  is  hard  to  tell  to-day  on  which  side  Lane 
really  was  at  heart,  if  indeed  he  had  any  heart 
for  either  side.  Many  hold  that  he  was  ready, 
as  occasion  offered,  to  support  both  sides  and  to 
betray  both.  Kobinson  suspected  him  to  the 
last,  and  it  would  seem,  with  good  reason. 
Already  in  these  early  days  they  had  singled 
each  other  out,  not  only  as  rivals,  but  as  irrecon 
cilable  foes,  even  when  both  of  them  were  act 
ing  together  in  the  same  party  for  the  same  end. 
Robinson  saw  in  him  the  demonic  marplot,  who 
might,  if  opportunity  smiled,  turn  traitor  and 
destroy  the  cause.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Lane 
had  great  gifts  of  a  certain  kind,  indeed  he  was 
possessed  of  flashes  of  momentary  genius.  His 
rugged,  drastic,  sensuous  eloquence,  not  always 
grammatical  or  free  from  coarseness,  went  home 
to  the  Westerners  in  Kansas,  being  in  their  native 
dialect.  The  filed,  round-spoken  phrases  of  the 
Yankee  talkers  were  more  correct  rhetoric  after 
the  books,  and  certainly  looked  better  in  print; 
but  they  could  not  compare  for  immediate  effect 
with  Lane's  harangues,  irregular  but  spontane- 


40  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

ous  and  flat-spoken,  as  if  born  on  the  spot  from 
the  flat  prairie  upon  which  his  audience  stood 
drinking  down  his  words  of  fire  that  hissed  home 
red- hot  to  the  frontiersman's  responsive  heart. 
There  is  no  denying  that  Lane  was  a  leader 
and  persuader  of  men,  though  most  could  not 
help  at  the  same  time  detecting  a  false  note 
winding  through  his  words  and  deeds,  even 
through  his  whole  character.  Fascination  he 
had,  but  it  was  of  the  Satanic  kind.  His  most 
illustrious  victim  in  this  line  was  Abraham  Lin 
coln,  then  President  of  the  United  States,  whom 
for  a  while  Lane  held  quite  spell-bound  in  his 
personal  schemes,  to  the  incalculable  injury  of 
Kansas  and  of  the  Union  cause,  till  the  diabolic 
charm  was  broken. 

Lane,  then,  must  be  deemed  the  Mephistopheles 
of  this  Kansas  drama,  the  spirit  that  denies, 
meaning  No  even  when  saying  and  acting  Yes, 
having  always  in  his  affirmative  a  deeper  nega 
tive.  Faithful  neither  to  God  n»r  to  God's 
enemies,  not  even  faithful  to  himself  in  the  long 
run,  unless  suicide  be  a  kind  of  last  fidelity,  for 
he,  having  entangled  himself  in  a  perfect  network 
of  villainies,  winds  up  by  killing  himself. 

3.  The  Kansas  cauldron  had  been  seething 
for  months  and  bubbling  over  with  all  sorts  of 

ZD 

conferences,  conventions,  resolutions  and  elo 
quences,  turning  into  solid  fact  that  fantastic 
witch-work  of  Shakespeare  with  its  uncanny  re- 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  41 

refrain:  Double,  double  toil  and  trouble,  Fire 
burn  and  cauldron  bubble.  A  swirling  agitation 
lifts  the  people  off  their  feet  and  dashes  them 
around  and  around  helplessly  in  a  magic  circle, 
without  much  apparent  result  at  first  except  the 
gyration  and  the  accompanying  many-sided  vo 
ciferation.  But  finally  the  undigested  mass  of 
struggling  atoms  begins  to  show  centers  of  coher 
ence;  surely  it  is  getting  itself  organized.  The 
first  manifestation  of  making  real  the  new  order 
is  the  convention  which  assembles  at  Big 
Springs,  Oct.  5th.  -  The  Free-State  party  is  here 
definitely  born  after  the  long  travail,  and  given  a 
name  and  a  purpose.  Big  Springs  had  four  or 
five  log-cabins  at  that  time;  the  hundred  dele 
gates  and  three  hundred  spectators  took  up  their 
abode  on  the  open  prairie.  Lawrence  could 
have  accommodated  these  people,  but  it  was  evi 
dently  shunned  as  too  hot  or  too  black.  For 
the  Convention  was  decidedly  of  an  anti-negro 
complexion.  Two  men  in  it  we  must  look  at. 

The  first  is  Reeder,  sometime  Governor,  but 
now  deposed  from  office,  having  become  mean 
while  a  most  violent  Free  State  man.  He  makes 
a  fiery  speech,  yea  intemperate,  giving  once  at 
least  quite  a  revolutionary  squint  when  he  speaks 
of  a  possible  "  bloody  issue."  Of  course  his 
audience  applauded  tremendously  there  on  the 
free  prairie,  being  also  in  a  warlike  mood.  Still 
how  could  they  help  having  a  little  furtive 


42  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

chuckle  at  the  ex-Governor's  expense!  For  he 
was  the  man  who  had  legalized  that  fraudulent 
Territorial  Legislature,  against  which  this  whole 
movement  was  directed.  They  nominated  him 
for  Delegate,  a  formal  recognition  of  his  new 
zeal.  But  Keeder's  best  service  was  outside  of 
Kansas,  especially  in  his  native  Pennsylvania, 
where  his  listeners  could  not  so  well  have  in 
mind  that  he  had  once  set  up  the  very  thing 
which  he  was  now  so  eager  to  knock  down. 
Those  hardy  frontiersmen  were  never  without  a 
sense  of  humor,  even  in  their  keenest  distress, 
and  Reeder's  forced  somersault  landing  him 
down  in  their  midst  frenzied  with  wrath  and 
overflowing  with  execration,  furnished  them 
much  amusement  and  more  satisfaction.  There 
could  be,  however,  no  question  about  the  sin 
cerity  of  Reeder,  nor  about  his  great  services  to 
the  cause  after  he  got  his  eyes  open. 

Another  character  who  played  an  important 
part  at  Big  Springs  was  the  before-mentioned 
James  II.  Lane,  our  Kansas  Mephistopheles. 
His  independent  Democratic  raft  having  sunk 
out  of  sight,  he  leaps  on  board  of  the  Free  State 
ship  with  such  zeal  and  dexterity  that  he  gets 
himself  at  once  appointed  helmsman.  He  is 
chosen  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  thirteen 
who  are  to  make  the  platform.  So  he  formu 
lates  the  policy  of  the  future.  It  is  declared 
that  "  the  best  interests  of  Kansas  require  a 


PAET  I.  —  THE  FIEST  INVASION.  43 

population  of  white  men,"  and  of  white  men 
alone.  In  our  new  State  negroes  of  every  con 
dition,  bond  and  free,  are  to  be  excluded.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  the  majority  of  the  Convention 
agreed  with  Lane  in  these  statements  and  stoutly 
denied  the  imputation  that  a  Free-State  man  was 
an  abolitionist.  Lane  seems  to  have  had  full 
swing,  Robinson  not  being  present  at  this  Con 
vention. 

4.  The  next  important  assemblage  wastheCon- 
stitutional  Convention  which  came  together  at 
Topeka, October  23rd,  1855.  Lane  was  chosen 
president,  The  political  character  of  the  body 
is  significant  of  early  Kansas.  There  were  34 
members;  19  reported  themselves  democrats,  the 
other  15  were  divided  up  among  half  a  dozen 
different  parties,  know-nothings,  republicans, 
etc.  The  majority  showed  themselves  friendly 
to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  of  Douglas,  which 
they  never  blamed  for  their  troubles.  In  fact 
the  doctrine  of  Popular  Sovereignty  mightily 
appealed  to  these  strong-boned,  self-reliant 
Westerners ;  they  did  not  ask  Congress  to  exclude 
slavery  from  Kansas,  they  felt  perfectly  able  to 
do  it  themselves,  if  they  wrere  given  a  fair 
chance.  We  must  recollect  that  the  first  Con 
stitution  making  Kansas  a  Free-State  was  the 
work  of  Douglas  democrats.  This  fact  Douglas 
himself  did  not  appreciate  till  it  was  too  late  to 
recover  his  vantage-ground.  The  present  year 


44  TEE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

(1855)  he  was  still  catering  to  the  South  for  the 
coming  nomination  to  the  Presidency,  wherein 
he  is  destined  not  to  succeed.  After  his  failure 
he  will  turn  to  support  his  Kansas  friends,  but 
the  tide  had  gone  out  and  left  him  stranded. 

Again  the  burning  question  harassed  the  Con 
vention,  What  shall  be  our  attitude  toward  the 
negro?  Lane  advocated  their  exclusion,  and 
carried  the  Convention  with  him,  though  Robin- 
sou,  who  was  now  present,  fought  it,  and  finally 
succeeded  in  having  the  black  clause  specially 
referred  to  the  vote  of  the  People  along  j\7ith  the 
Constitution.  But  the  people  voted  by  a  major 
ity  of  nearly  three  to  one  for  exclusion,  ratify- 
at  the  same  time  the  Constitution  by  1731  votes 
to  4(5.  Still  at  this  election  they  chose  Charles 
Robinson,  though  a  pronounced  abolitionist,  for 
Governor  instead  of  Lane,  to  pilot  them  through 
the  threatening  tempest  of  the  future.  Surely  a 
marvelous  case  of  true  instinct  on  the  part  of  the 
People,  who  take  the  right  man  who  disagrees 
and  reject  the  wrong  man  who  agrees,  with  their 
prejudices. 

5.  The  next  important  meeting  was  that  of  the 
Legislature  of  the  new  State  chosen  under  the 
Topeka  Constitution,  which  thus  shows  itself  a 
working  instrument  (March  4,  1856).  Governor 
Robinson  gave  his  inaugural,  outlining  a  firm, 
but  cautious,  law-abiding  policy.  The  Legisla 
ture  elected  two  United  States  Senators  —  Reeder 


PAET  I.  -  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  45 

and  Lane,  and  asked  for  admission  to  the  Union. 
The  man  of  the  hour  was  clearly  Robinson. 
He  had  to  steer  his  ship  so  that  it  would  not 
collide  with  the  General  government  or  with  the 
Territorial  government.  And  yet  he  had  to  out 
wit  both,  and  really  put  them  down,  besides 
restraining  the  violent  heads  on  his  own  side,  and 
meeting  the  Missourians  with  violence,  if  they 
attacked  unlawfully.  All  the  unruly,  revolution 
ary,  fanatical  elements  of  the  North  were  flocking 
into  Kansas;  among  them  appeared  at  Lawrence 
one  day  John  Brown,  with  whom  also  Robinson 
stands  in  decided  contrast  as  an  institutional 
man  controlling  the  anarchic  elements  on  both 
sides,  South  and  North. 

6.  We  must  not  fail  to  notice  the  part  of  our 
American  Mephistopheles,  who  now  appears  at 
Washington,  with  the  written  instrument  of  the 
Topeka  Legislature,  asking  for  the  admission  of 
Kansas  into  the  Union.  The  document  was  pre 
sented  in  such  a  condition  to  the  Senate  that  its 
genuineness  was  at  once  suspected  ;  for  instance 
all  its  signatures  were  in  the  same  handwriting, 
and  the  well-known  clause  excluding  the  negro 
was  omitted.  Lane  sought  to  excuse  it  and  then 
to  amend  it,  but  without  success.  Douglas 
assailed  it  as  fraudulent,  as  having  no  date,  no 
genuine  signatures,  as  suppressing  a  material 
provision,  namely  the  black  clause.  Lane  de 
manded  an  explanation  of  the  attack  upon  his 


46  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

honor,  but  never  received  it  from  Douglas.  This 
episode,  however,  was  the  turning-point  in  Lane's 
democracy,  his  enthusiasm  for  the  doctrines  of 
the  Little  Giant  underwent  an  instantaneous 
change.  The  House  of  Representatives  re 
garded  the  instrument  with  more  favor,  using  it 
as  a  weapon  against  the  Administration. 

As  in  many  other  actions,  the  motives  of  Lane 
in  this  maneuver  are  not  easy  to  fathom.  Did 
he  really  intend  to  discredit  the  Kansas  Consti 
tution  in  Congress?  Was  he  secretly  scheming 
to  undo  the  labor  of  the  Free-State  men?  He 
knew  that 'his  special  antagonist,  Robinson,  who 
thoroughly  believed  in  his  duplicity,  was  already 
the  Governor  and  would  continue  to  be  the  fore 
most  man  of  the  new  State.  Mephistopheles 
may  have  seen  his  own  supremacy  in  the  ruins  of 
the  work  of  his  party.  Many  thought  and  still 
think  that  Lane's  Free-Stateism  was  a  mask  for 
ambition,  which  would  not  hesitate  at  any  deed 
of  Satanic  treachery  or  destruction.  Robinson, 
who  had  to  watch  him  and  to  countermine  his 
plottings  for  years,  has  left  this  view  of  him  : 
"Totally  without  principles  or  convictions  of 
any  kind,  cowardly  and  treacherous."  We  doubt 
if  Lane  was  always  cowardly ;  for  he  certainly 
did  at  times  fight,  though  he  had  also  the  gift  of 
disappearing  opportunely  from  danger. 

7.  At  the  best  the  Topeka  Constitution  was 
irregular,  and  from  a  legal  point  of  view  could 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  47 

not  hold  water.  But  it  showed  these  Western 
settlers  in  a  peculiar  American  function :  State- 
making.  They  could  construct  their  own  State 
as  distinct  from  Missouri,  some  of  whose 
residents  had  sought  to  usurp  that  function. 
Americanism  lies  fundamentally  in  being  able  to 
make  institutions  when  they  are  needed.  In  fact 
the  American  must  make  them,  they  are  not  to 
be  put  on  him  from  the  outside. 

The  result  is  Kansas  has  two  governments, 
parallel  yet  running  in  opposite  directions.  The 
one  is  legal  but  wrong,  the  other  illegal  but 
right.  Moreover  the  one  is  slave  and  the  other 
free.  Both  sides  come  to  Congress  and  divide 
it,  the  Senate  taking  one  side  and  the  House  the 
other.  Thus  the  original  dualism  of  the  Federal 
Union  with  its  slavery  and  its  freedom  goes  over 
into  Kansas  and  makes  of  it  for  a  time  two 
States,  or  rather  two  governments,  which  hence 
forth  will  rasp  and  fight  against  each  other, 
struggling  for  supremacy.  Robinson's  scheme 
will  hold  the  Free-State  men  together  by  means 
of  a  definite  political  aim,  till  the  time  comes  for 
a  more  legal  Constitution. 

Meanwhile  colonists  from  the  North  keep 
pouring  over  the  border,  both  individually  and  in 
small  groups.  The  Emigrant  Aid  Society  pushes 
its  work,  exciting  an  incessant  roar  of  denuncia 
tion  and  of  approval  from  the  two  opposite 
parties.  The  New  England  snowball,  starting 


48  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

on  its  native  hills  not  very  large,  would  roll 
westward,  gaining  successive  accretions  in  its 
journey  till  it  would  reach  the  plains  of  Kansas 
in  considerable  size,  and  then  melt  into  its  in 
dividual  constituents,  each  of  them  being  pre 
pared  for  the  expected  contest.  Thus  an  army 
of  volunteers  was  enlisted  in  the  North  whose 
Folk-Soul  was  stirred  continually  by  the  reports 
from  Kansas,  and  was  prompting  many  to  mi 
gration. 

The  Southerners  tried  to  force  Governor  Rob 
inson  and  the  Free-State  men  to  do  just  that  which 
they  will  themselves  do  later:  to  assail  the  Gov 
ernment.  But  Robinson  was  too  wary  to  be 
caught  in  the  trap  they  had  set  for  him.  We 
shall  hereafter  see  the  Southerners,  when  voted 
out  of  power  in  the  Nation,  proceed  to  act  the 
part  which  they  had  schemed  for  the  Free-Stale 
men  of  Kansas,  attempting  to  drive  the  latter  into 
collision  with  established  authority.  But  they 
failed  to  force  Robinson  to  do  what  they  would 
have  done,  had  they  been  placed  in  his  situation. 
Their  device  to  throw  him  into  antagonism  to  the 
Government  was  born  of  their  own  hearts,  and 
so  they  utterly  failed  to  grasp  his  character.  If 
he  had  been  they,  they  would  certainly  have  suc- 
ceded,  since  they  measured  him  by  themselves, 
having  indeedno  other  measure.  But  Robinson's 
mental  range  lay  quite  beyond  their  conscious 
ness,  he  knew  them,  but  they  did  not  and  could 


PAST  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  49 

not  know  him ;  hence  their  blows,  elaborately 
planned,  so  often  went  wide  of  the  mark  and  even 
turned  to  boomerangs. 

V. 

In  the  spring  before  these  events,  Governor 
Reeder  had  gone  back  home,  and  at  Easton,  Pa., 
he  had  made  a  speech  to  his  Democratic  neigh 
bors  on  the  enormities  of  the  Kansas  invasion. 
The  speech  was  printed  in  the  newspapers  and 
read  with  avidity  throughout  the  North.  The 
fact  that  he  was  the  Democratic  appointee  of  the 
Administration,  and  had  gone  to  Kansas  a  pro- 
slavery  man,  imparted  a  convincing  power  to  his 
words.  Then  he  went  to  Washington  and  had 
several  interviews  with  President  Pierce  whom  he 
sought  to  gain  for  Kansas.  But  he  soon  found 
that  he  was  a  doomed  man ;  he  must  resign  or 
be  removed.  After  some  parley  ings  he  refused 
t@  resign,  and  returned  to  Kansas  where  on  Au 
gust  15th  he  received  notice  of  his  removal  in  the 
midst  of  a  hot  quarrel  with  the  Territorial  Legis 
lature.  He  resolved  to  stay  in  Kansas,  and 
became  an  important  leader  of  the  Free-State 
party.  He  was  the  first  of  the  considerable  line 
of  Kansas  Territorial  Governors  who  were  speed 
ily  precipitated  from  their  seats  by  the  Kansas 
whirl-wind. 

While  at  Washington  Reeder  makes  the  dis 
covery,  to  him  very  surprising,  that  the  Admin- 

4 


50  THE  TEN   YEARS'    WAR. 

istration  is  with  the  Missourians,  and  is  secretly 
egging  them  on  through  Jefferson  Davis,  Secre 
tary  of  War  and  head  of  the  inner  slave-holding 
circle  at  the  Capital.  To  be  sure  the  partisans 
of  the  Administration  could  show  to  Reeder  his 
own  certificates  of  election  legalizing  that  Terri 
torial  Legislature  which  he  now  claimed  to  be 

o 

fraudulent.  Thus  lie  was  caught  in  that  peculiar 
Kansas  grind  between  legality  which  is  wrong 
and  illegality  which  is  right.  But  Reeder  ac 
knowledged  his  mistake  and  certainly  tried  to 
undo  it  with  a  considerable  outlay  of  energy  and 
ability.  Already  we  have  noted  him  as  one  of 
the  leading  men  in  the  Free-State  Convention  at 
Big  Springs. 

But  the  chief  thing  which  is  brought  to  the 
surface  by  these  events  connected  with  Reader's 
removal,  is  the  process  which  they  reveal,  and 
which  generates  them  in  order.  As  this  will 
continue  to  the  end  of  the  Kansas  troubles,  we 
may  bring  out  its  nature  more  fully,  by  stating 
its  main  points  in  brief : 

1st.  Washington.  The  source  of  the  irritation 
goes  back  to  the  Administration,  which  had  re 
solved  to  make  Kansas  a  Slave-State.  It  was 
soon  found  that  the  Free-State  men  had  the 
majority,  and  so  violence  was  to  be  employed  by 
means  of  the  Missourians.  Jefferson  Davis  has 
always  had  the  credit  of  being  the  main  mover 
in  this  scheme.  The  minority  must  still  rule, 


PART  I.  -  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  51 

otherwise  the  South,  being  now  the  minority  of 
the  Nation,  will  have  to  give  up  its  leadership 
maintained  for  two  generations. 

2nd.  Kansas.  The  resistance  of  the  Free-State 
people  to  Slave -Stateism  led  to  the  invasions, 
the  arbitrary  actions  of  the  administrative  offi_ 
eials,  the  abuses  committed  by  the  legislative  and 
judicial  powers  of  the  Territory.  Outrage,  tor 
ture,  murder  were  the  result,  with  outcries  and 
shrieks  of  pain  from  its  victim.  "  Bleeding 
Kansas,"  as  the  time  phrased  it,  became  the  all- 
absorbing  theme  of  the  Folk-Soul,  rousing  sym 
pathy  or  perchance  satire  according  to  the  man, 

3rd.  The  Nation.  Between  the  center  at 
Washington  and  the  border  of  Kansas  lay  the 
listening  Nation,  whose  ears  were  filled  with  the 
echoes  of  these  Kansas 'shrieks,  reverberated  in 
the  North  by  press,  pulpit,  hustings.  Eli  Thayer 
got  even  the  Yankee  schoolmistresses  to  working 
for  Kansas,  and  they  too  are  known  to  have 
tongues.  Of  course  the  South  also  had  its  re 
verberating  machine  at  work,  but  it  was  a  puny 
piping  in  comparison  to  the  Northern  redupli- 
cator  thousand-mouthed.  It  is  still  amusing 
to  see  the  Southern  senators  and  journals  curse 
the  big  Northern  machine  in  a  kind  of  helpless 
ness.  Why  did  not  they  construct  a  similar 
one?  That  was  indeed  a  striking  part  of  their 
weakness;  but  of  this  more  will  be  said  later. 

Such,  however,  is    the  round  of  this  historic 


52  THE  TEN  YEAR&    WAR. 

process:  from  Washington  to  Kansas,  then  from 
Kansas  back  to  the  People  lying  between,  who 
are  finally  to  determine  Washington.  Evidently 
here  a  mighty  discipline  of  a  nation  is  taking 
place  for  some  very  important  future  task.  The 
American  Folk-Soul,  so  we  may  name  it,  is  in 
great  distress,  which  is  growing  greater,  quite 
beyond  the  point  of  further  endurance.  It  is 
divided  within  itself  into  two  antipathetic,  if  not 
warring  halves,  which  get  to  downright  battle 
in  Kansas.  It  is  becoming  a  cleft  Folk-Soul, 
cleft  into  North  and  South,  or  into  Free-States 
and  Slave-States.  The  question  is  burning  in 
every  heart:  Shall  this  so-called  Union  remain 
dual,  in  an  eternal  wrangle  or  shall  it  be  made 
one  and  a  real  Union?  The  Spirit  of  the  Age, 
the  Genius  of  History  may  be  heard  command 
ing  first  in  a  whisper  which  is  soon  to  break  out 
into  thunder  tones :  The  strain  of  destiny  woven 
into  the  Constitution  at  its  birth  and  burdening 
it  with  its  own  deepest  self-contradiction  must 
now  be  eliminated;  it  can  no  longer  remain  half- 
slave,  half -free,  in  the  prophetic  words  of  the 
coming  leader. 

The  cleft  Folk-Soul  is  becoming  aware  of  its 
cleavage,  and  is  slowly  resolving  to  get  rid  of  the 
rent  somehow.  The  whole  Kansas  discipline 
with  its  ever-recurring  process  is  to  bring  the 
People  to  a  consciousness  of  their  halved  condition. 
They  wake  up  to  find  themselves  not  a  Union, 


PART  I.  —  THE  FIRST  INVASION.  53 

and  are  beginning  to  grasp  for  the  means  of  be 
coming  a  Union.  The  dissonance  sounding- 
back  from  the  plains  of  Kansas  and  stirring  the 
Folk-Soul  with  a  deep  response,  brings  it  to  feel 
its  own  dissonance.  Such  is  the  folk-psycho 
logical  process  now  going  on,  which  is  the  pro 
found  historic  purpose  underlying  and  control 
ling  these  Kansas  events. 

Say  the  Missourians  to  the  Kansans :  We  in 
tend  to  drive  you  around  up  to  Nebraska,  where 
you  belong.  There  you  can  have  your  Free- 
State  on  a  line  with  the  other  Free- States.  But 
this  territory  of  Kansas  is  ours,  and  we  shall 
make  it  a  Slave-State,  thus  keeping  the  Union 
divided,  half-slave  and  half-free. 

Say  the  Kansans  to  the  Missourians :  Nebraska 
is  indeed  a  goodly  laud,  but  there  we  feel  no  soul- 
compelling  principle  at  stake  along  its  latitu 
dinal  bound  running  westward.  So  we  pass 
down  to  Kansas  and  to  conflict,  forming  a  new 
longitudinal  bound,  and  building  along  it  against 
slavery  our  bulwark  of  farms,  on  which  indeed 
we  intend  to  raise  corn  and  potatoes  with  our  own 
right  hand,  but  also  to  try  the  issue  of  the  age 
which  has  written  upon  our  hearts  the  command  : 
No  more  Slave-States  are  to  be  born  of  mother 
Union,  our  beloved,  prolific,  State-bearing 
mother. 

That  indeed  may  well  be  called  the  new  Union 


54  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

or  the  beginning  thereof,  whose  evolution  is  the 
very  soul  of  this  Ten-Years'  War. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  pro-slavery  party 
saw  that  they  had  been  thwarted.  Their  deed 
of  violence  had  united  the  Free-State  men,  and 
had  called  forth  Robinson's  scheme  of  an  auti- 
government,  which  quite  counteracted  the  work 
of  the  Territorial  Legislature.  What  was  to  be 
done?  A  blow  must  be  struck,  and  again  it 
was  resolved  to  resort  to  violence.  Another 
invasion  of  the  Missourians  was  the  plan,  but 
this  time  its  purpose  was  not  to  vote  but  to 
destroy.  The  Free-State  center,  Lawrence, 
home  of  Robinson  and  supposed  source  of  all 
agitation  was  to  be  wiped  out  literally  ;  the  Free- 
State  men  were  to  be  driven  away;  but  chiefly 
the  anti-government  was  to  be  obliterated. 
Accordingly  a  new  irritant  or  instrument  of  tor 
ture  was  to  be  applied  to  Kansas  from  the  out 
side,  trying  to  force  her  to  be  that  which  she  is 
not  and  can  never  be. 

So  we  come  to  the  Second  Invasion  of  Kan 
sas  from  Missouri,  planned  and  carried  out, 
some  eight  or  nine  months  after  the  lirst  one 
already  narrated,  which  has  evidently  failed  of 
its  purpose.  The  Legislature  then  elected  holds 
its  sessions  indeed,  and  passes  laws,  which,  how 
ever,  as  they  never  came  from  the  People,  never 
go  back  to  the  People,  but  remain  legal  phan 
toms  without  the  blood  of  life. 


PART  I.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.  55 


Seconfc  Unvaeiom 

Early  in  December,  1855,  some  twelve  hun 
dred  men  or  more  were  encamped  in  Kansas 
along  a  small  stream  which  bore  the  name  of 
Wakerusa.  Nearly  all  of  them  had  come  across 
the  border  from  Missouri,  to  which  they  intended 
to  return  when  their  present  task  was  finished. 
They  were  a  miscellaneous  crowd  armed  with 
miscellaneous  weapons  —  rifles,  horse-pistols, 
shot-guns,  and  even  the  old  rusty  flint-lock  is 
said  to  have  appeared.  They  had  straggled 
from  various  Missouri  towns  in  groups  which 
took  what  they  wanted  from  the  surrounding 
country.  It  was  a  disorderly  band,  swearing, 
swaggering,  whisky-drinking,  with  small  sem 
blance  of  military  organization.  On  the  Waker 
usa  they  lay  foraging  the  neighboring  farms, 
and  discharging  oaths  at  a  town  whose  roofs 
and  steeples  were  in  sight,  and  which  was  the 
chief  objective  point  of  their  expedition.  Still 
they  did  not  attack  it,  though  they  had  come 
for  that  purpose. 

This  town  was  Lawrence,  the  storm-center  of 
the  Territory,  which  also  showed  signs  of  war  dur 
ing  these  days.  Its  citizens  were  under  arms  and 
drilling;  earth-works  had  been  thrown  up  as  rude 
fortifications  defended  bv  six  hundred  men  not 


56  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR 

without  lines  of  grim  determination  in  their 
faces.  Moreover  one-third  had  that  wonderful 
weapon,  Sharpe's  rifle,  a  breech-loader,  rapid  - 
tiring,  capable  of  sending  a  bullet  through  its 
victim  at  the  distance  of  half  a  mile  or  more,  to 
which  real  qualities  were  added  other  marvelous 
attributes  terrifying  to  the  invaders  along  the 
Wakerusa. 

Such  were  "the  two  foes  that  stood  glaring 
fiercelv  at  each  other  for  many  days,  showing 
their  teeth  but  never  coming  to  an  actual  bite. 
Now  and  then,  especially  under  the  cover  of 
night,  a  stray  bullet  would  whiz  out  the  camp 
toward  the  hated  town,  but  nobody  was  ever  hit 
and  the  shot  was  not  returned.  The  one  side 
seemed  to  have  discipline  and  maintained  a 
strictly  defensive  attitude,  though  they  were 
called  the  outlaws  ;  the  other  side  was  an  unruly 
and  unruled  multitude,  though  they  had  named 
themselves  the  party  of  Law  and  Order,  for 
whose  defense  they  as  chivalrous  sons  of  Light 
had  sallied  from  their  castles  in  Missouri  to  the 
lawless  and  benighted  land  of  Kansas.  Thus 
again  we  hear  the  strident  contradiction  of  the 
time:  Disorder  claims  to  be  the  maker  and  up 
holder  of  Order,  while  Order  is  set  down  as  the 
maker  and  upholder  of  Disorder. 

Once  more  the  two  forces  of  this  conflict  are 
lined  up  for  battle,  and  seem  about  to  grapple. 
It  is  not  merely  a  neighorhood  quarrel  or  a  border 


PART  I.  —  THE  SECOXD  INVASION.  57 

fora}',  but  these  two  contending  sides  have  behind 
them  the  divisions  of  a  great  people  and  the 
future  of  a  whole  continent.  We  have  already 
called  it  our  American  Iliad,  notyetsung  but  cer 
tainly  acted  under  the  supervision  of  the  Gods, 
not  now  the  old  Homeric  Olympians  but  still 
higher  divinities,  whom  also  we  shall  have  to  in 
voke,  and  perchance  introduce,  if  we  are  to  catch 
the  whole  significance  of  this  new  Ten  Years' 
War. 

I. 

But  what  brought  matters  to  the  present  pass 
along  the  Wakerusa?  A  Slave-State  man  by  the 
name  of  Coleman  quarreled  with  his  neighbor,  a 
Free-State  man  called  Dow,  about  a  land-claim, 
and  ended  by  slaying  him.  At  once  some  Free- 
State  settlers,  friends  of  the  murdered  man,  rose 
and  burned  the  cabins  of  the  other  side.  A 
friend  of  the  murderer  fled  to  Westport,  a  border- 
town  of  Missouri,  and  gave  the  alarm.  The 
Sheriff  of  the  Kansas  County  where  the  deed  took 
place  lived  at  Westport ;  he  crossed  the  border 
with  a  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  old  Jacob  Bran 
son,  friend  of  Dow,  who  was  accused  of  theaten- 
ing  vengeance  against  the  accomplice  of  the 
murderer. 

Sheriff  Jones,  the  officer  of  the  law,  with  his 
posse  slips  into  Branson's  cabin  at  dead  of  night, 
arrests  him  and  starts  for  Lecompton.  But  the 
morning-sun  scatters  the  news,  and  soon  a  party 


58  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAE. 

of  fifteen  resolute  Free-State  men  start  in  pur 
suit ;  they  intercept  tho  Sheriff  who  stopped  too 
often  along  the  road  for  refreshments,  till  finally 
he  had  to  face  the  muzzles  of  squirrel  guns  and 
even  some  Sharpe's  rifles.  The  argument  was 
convincing,  and  Branson  was  given  up  without  a 
shot. 

The  rescuers,  knowing  that  they  had  violated 
law,  hasten  to  Lawrence  to  advise  with  the 
people  there,  friendly  but  seeking  to  avoid  every 
appearance  of  legal  violation.  Eobinson,  the 
leading  spirit  of  the  town,  said;  "lam  afraid 
the  affair  will  make  mischief."  The  people 
assembled  in  town-meeting  and  discussed  the 
situation.  They  concluded  that  they  could  not 
harbor  the  rescuers,  but  must  avoid  giving  any 
pretext  for  invasion  from  Missouri,  which  they 
knew  awaited  them  on  the  least  provocation. 
So  Jacob  Branson  and  his  friends  pass  out  of 
Lawrence  into  some  other  place  of  hiding  and 
out  of  view  of  History. 

This  was  the  event  which  caused  Lawrence  to 
prepare  for  war,  having  heard  only  rumors  from 
Missouri,  and  feeling  the  situation  to  be  perilous. 
A  committee  of  safety  was  appointed,  the  citzcns 
were  mustered  and  trained  in  guard  duty,  and 
the  town  built  fortifications  on  every  side.  They 
knew  their  foe,  who  was  armed  with  the  law 
of  the  Territory,  and  who  had  the  government  of 
the  United  States  on  his  side.  Still  they  felt 


PART  1.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.  59 

they  were  the  advance  guard  of  Civilization,  of 
the  coming  United  States,  not  the  present,  and 
so  they  stood  in  a  Marathon!  an  struggle  against 
the  migiity  powers  directed  against  their  little 
baud,  inspired,  we  may  say,  by  the  World-Spirit. 

In  their  emergency  the  people  chose  Robinson 
to  be  their  leader  with  the  title  of  major-general 
though  he  was  not  a  military  man.  Lane  was 
made  the  second  in  command,  though  he  had 
been  an  officer  in  the  Mexican  War.  This  se 
lection  we  may  regard  as  a  judgment  of  the  two 
rivals  by  the  people,  a  judgment  which  the  fu 
ture  has  pronounced  [circumspect  but  correct,  in 
view  of  the  characters  of  the  two  men. 

With  a  parting  glance  at  the  rescuers  hurrying 
off  in  one  direction,  we  shall  turn  back  to  take  a 
look  at  Sheriff  Jones,  slowly  retracing  his  steps 
toward  Missouri  in  the  opposite  direction  without 
old  Jacob  Branson,  whose  only  crime  was  to 
have  made  some  threats  against  the  assassins  of 
his  friend  Dow.  It  was  indeed  humiliating;  the 
Sheriff  with  his  men  cowed,  thwarted,  and  wrath 
ful,  when  alone,  resolved  at  once  to  take  revenge 
and  sent, to  Missouri  for  assistance,  his  message 
even  reaching  the  Capital  of  the  State,  Jefferson 
City,  where  the  Legislature  was  in  session. 
Through  the  Missouri  towns  the  importunate  cry 
resounded:  Help,  help  to  put  down  the  new 
outbreak  of  the  Abolitionists  against  Law  and 
Order.  The  Sheriff  estimated  that  3,000  men 


GO  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

would  1)0  required  to  do  the  work  effectually. 
His  heated  imagination  saw  in  the  rescuers  an 
army,  whereas  they  numbered  just  fifteen  with 
eight  guns  in  the  crowd,  and  one  human  cata 
pult,  a  Free-State  man  armed  with  two  big 
stones  in  default  of  other  weapons. 

The  men  whom  we  have  seen  encamped  along 
the  banks  of  the  Wakerusa  were  those  who 
responded  to  the  Sheriff's  request.  At  first  he 
did  not  think  of  calling  on  the  territorial  execu 
tive  for  aid,  but  somebody  suggested  it  as  the 
proper  thing,  and  so  he  appealed  to  Shannon,  the 
new  Governor  of  Kansas,  with  a  blood-curdling 
recital  of  outrages  inflicted  upon  constituted  au 
thority.  At  this  point  is  introduced  into  the 
present  invasion  a  new  element  of  which  some 
account  must  be  taken. 

II. 

Wilson  Shannon,  a  well-known  public  man 
from  Ohio,  of  good  reputation,  was  appointed 
by  Pierce  as  the  successor  of  Reeder.  He  ar 
rived  September  3rd  at  Shawuee  Mission,  the 
capital,  was  accorded  a  flattering  reception  by 
(he  pro-slavery  party,  and  was  at  once  com 
pletely  benetted  by  their  schemes.  He  took 
their  view  in  regard  to  Kansas,  denouncing  Law 
rence  and  Big  Springs  with  their  conventions, 
and  Topeka  with  its  Constitution  and  Legisla 
ture,  in  terms  which  seemed  to  be  put  into  his 


PART  I.  -  THE  SECOND  IXVASlOy.  61 


mouth  by  the  Missourians.  To  look  into  the 
other  side  never  entered  his  head,  till  it  got  a. 
heavy  knock.  "  The  President  is  behind  you," 
he  cried  out  triumphing  in  a  speech,  "  the  Presi 
dent  is  behind  you,"  namely  you  the  Mis- 
sourians,  who  had  assumed  the  name  of  the  Law 
and  Order  Party.  Particularly  the  anti-govern 
ment  of  Robinson  was  declared  to  be  treasonable. 

Such  was  the  entrance  of  Wilson  Shannon 
into  Kansas  Territory,  of  which  he  was  Gov 
ernor.  In  these  early  words  of  his  we  catch  the 
echo  of  the  President's  instructions  to  him,  or 
rather  those  of  Jefferson  Davis  who  was.  at  this 
time  the  power  behind  the  Presidential  puppet. 
Fresh  from  Washington  these  words  seem  to 
come,  reverberating  through  the  mouth  of  Shan 
non.  But  is  there  no  power  behind  Pierce  and 
Davis  and  all  Washington?  If  not,  woe  be 
unto  Kansas  and  all  of  us. 

The  truth  soon  comes  out  that  in  Kansas  the 
executive  and  legislative  powers  combined  were 
having  no  success.  The  Free-State  men  got 
along  without  both,  by  one  makeshift  or  other, 
being  reduced  to  an  atomic  condition.  They 
made  no  attack,  no  resistance  to  the  authority 
which,  even  if  legal,  was  fraudulent  in  origin. 
The  Missourians  had  destroyed  the  American 
State-making  principle  by  violently  supplanting 
the  independent  voter  and  settler.  But  the 
American  did  not  propose  to  allow  the  usurpation 


62  THE  TEN  TEAKS'    WAK. 

to  pass  unchallenged  since  it  assailed  his  deepest 
political  consciousness,  and  deprived  him  of  his 
first  right,  that  of  making  his  own  institutions. 

In  this  time  of  the  declining  Slave-State 
cause,  there  occurred  the  events  already  men 
tioned:  the  murder  of  Dow,  the  rescue  of 
Branson,  and  the  Sheriff's  call  upon  the  Governor 
for  troops.  Shannon  promptly  responded,  hut 
not  more  than  fifty  men  in  Kansas  could  be 
found  ready  to  sacrifice  themselves  in  such  a 
cause,  which  seemed  peculiarly  that  of  the 
Missourians,  whose  numbers  and  zeal  have  been 
already  celebrated  in  the  exploits  along  the 
banks  of  the  Wakerusa. 

So  Lawrence  remained  in  a  state  of  siege  for 
many  days;  the  besiegers  did  not  dare  attack, 
and  the  besieged  kept  strictly  on  the  defensive 
from  policy.  At  last  a  Committee  from  the  town 
got  through  the  lines  of  the  enemy  and  reached 
the  Governor,  who,  after  spending  his  ill- 
humor  in  a  severe  lecture,  was  ready  to  listen 
to  the  other  side.  The  Committee  presented 
their  case,  the  Governor  showed  something  of 
an  inner  revulsion.  "  I  shall  go  to  Lawrence/' 
says  he — a  visit  which  he  ought  to  have  made 
long  since.  But  first  he  went  to  the  camp  on 
the  Wakerusa,  where  he  found  an  undisciplined 
mass  of  men  frenzied  by  whisky  and  clamoring 
to  attack  the  town  in  utter  ignorance  of  its 
strength  which,  however,  was  well  known  to  their 


PART  I.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.          63 

leaders.  Shannon  dissuaded,  in  fact,  forbade 
by  virtue  of  his  office  any  such  movement. 

Then  he  went  to  Lawrence  December  7th. 
He  must  have  been  struck  by  the  contrast.  Here 
was  order  and  sobriety,  doubtless  coupled  with 
a  strong  determination.  His  demands  were 
chiefly  two:  deliver  up  your  Sharpe's  rifles, 
that  awful  goblin  of  the  Missourians,  and  obey 
the  law.  The  former  demand  was  firmly  refused 
with  an  appeal  to  the  right  of  every  American 
to  bear  arms,  a  right  guaranteed  by  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States.  As  to  the  law,  they 
were  ready  now,  and  alwirvs  had  been,  to  obey 
it;  they  would  even  assist  the  Sheriff  in  execut 
ing  his  writ  against  the  rescuers,  but  he  must  not 
bring  with  him  that  drunken  horde  of  Missouri 
borderers  as  his  posse,  thus  exposing  their  town 
to  murder  and  rapine.  As  to  the  rescuers,  it 
was  shown  that  they  were  publicly  warned  to 
leave  Lawrence,  which  they  did  at  once,  and  had 
not  been  seen  since. 

Shannon  felt  these  facts  and  arguments  to  be 
irresistible;  he  had  even  called  the  Missourians, 
whom  he  had  now  seen  with  his  own  eyes,  "  a 
pack  of  hyenas."  Evidently  he  undergoes  a 
kind  of  conversion  there  in  Lawrence.  Hence 
forth  his  sole  object  is  to  bring  about  the  with 
drawal  of  the  Wakerusa  warriors.  This  must 
be  done  with  great  tact,  else  there  might  be  an 
explosion.  Atchison,  the  Missouri  Senator,  who 


Gi  THE  TEN  YEARtf    \YAli. 

was  present  with  his  chin,  aided  the  Governor  in 
this  work,  saying,  "  The  position  of  General 
Robinson  is  impregnable;  his  tactics  have  given 
him  all  the  advantage  as  to  the  causeof  quarrel." 
Atchison  also  saw  the  national  import  of  the 
conflict:  "If  you  attack  Lawrence  now,"  says 
he  to  his  disgusted  comrades,  "  you  would  cause 
the  election  of  an  abolition  President  (in  185(5) 
and  the  ruin  of  the  Democratic  party.' 

A  truce  was  patched  up  and  the  disgruntled 
Missourians  set  out  for  home  with  the  Governor's 
words  ringing  in  their  ears  that  "  he  had  not 
called  upon  persons  resident  of  any  other  State 
to  aid  in  the  execution  of  the  laws-,"  and  plainly 
intimating  that  they  were  present  without 
authority.  Such  statements  were  not  pleasant 
to  Sheriff  Jones  who  had  invoked  their  help,  and 
he  vowed  that  he  would  wreak  vengeance  yet 
upon  the  accursed  town.  Not  an  idle  threat,  but 
an  outlook  on  the  future,  whereof  time  will 
furnish  the  confirmation.  Jones  knew  somewhat 
of  the  inner  workings  of  this  Kansas  business, 
and  was  well  aware  of  his  own  power  at  the 
center  in  Washington,  being  Democratic  post 
master  of  Wcstport,  conveniently  situated  on  the 
border.  But  Shannon  is  clearly  going  the  way 
of  Keeder  whose  career  and  fate  he  so  ardently 
thought  to  shun.  One-sided  he  began,  intensely 
so;  but  now  he  knows  the  other  side,  and  has 
treated  it  with  some  degree  of  fairness  if  not  of 


PARTI.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.  65 

sympathy.  He  can  never  more  be  what  he  was 
at  the  start;  he  has  experienced  a  change  of 
heart  which  totally  unfits  him,  under  the  present 
administration,  for  the  Governorship  of  Kansas. 
He  can  no  longer  be  the  pliant  tool  of  the 
Missourians  and  he  is  a  doomed  man — a  fact 
which  Sheriff  Jones  seems  to  prognosticate,  as 
he  and  his  cohorts  sullenly  retire  from  their  ex 
ploits  on  the  Wakerusa,  still  vowing  revenge  in 
the  future. 

But  Lawrence  is  safe  and  has  won  a  victory 
without  blood.  The  Sharpe's  rifles  were  not 
given  up,  the  Topeka  Constitution  was  not 
renounced,  the  anti-government  was  not 
surrendered.  Robinson  had  shown  himself  a 
strategist  of  the  first  rank.  The  citizens  gave 
themselves  up  to  rejoicings,  of  course  with  a  great 
overflow  of  speeches.  Only  one  of  these  struck 
a  discordant  note.  A  long  lank  form  mounted 
a  store-box  and  began  to  denounce  a  compromise 
which  sullied  a  great  cause  from  fear  of  blood 
shed.  He  was  soon  pulled  down  from  his  perch 
by  the  jubilating  crowd,  and  compelled  to  bide 
his  time  for  a  fairer  opportunity.  Who  was  it? 
Old  John  Brown:  he  had  recently  arrived  in  the 
Territory  and  had  uttered  there  his  first  word, 
truly  prophetic  of  his  coming  career. 

III. 

Most  of  our  information    about  early  Kansas 

5 


6(5  THE  TEN  YEARS9   WAR. 

comes  from  New  Englanders,  who  do  not  fail  to 
give  full  validity  to  their  side  and  section.  Mrs. 
Sara  Robinson,  wife  of  the  Governor,  heads  the 
procession  with  recounting  the  trials  of  the  early 
settlers  in  a  very  readable  book,  which  helped  the 
cause  and  gave  her  a  name  —  a  name  which,  by 
ardent  admirers,  was  paralleled  with  that  of  Mrs. 
Stowe,  and  which  put  her  prominently  into  the 
considerable  list  of  Puritan  women  who  have  set 
down  in  writing  their  experiences,  inner  and 
outer.  And  the  Governor  himself,  though 
supremely  a  man  of  action,  has  left  us  an 
account  of  his  stewardship  in  a  book  valuable 
for  its  facts,  but  from  a  literary  point  of  view 
not  so  good  as  his  wife's.  And  Eli  Thayer,  the 
great  organizer  of  talk  who  disparaged  talk,  has 
very  acceptably  talked  to  posterity  about  his 
Kansas  achievement  in  a  printed  volume.  These 
we  may  deem  the  leaders  in  the  procession  of 
writers  on  Kansas,  followed  by  many  others 
vociferating  with  all  their  might  to  catch  the 
public  ear. 

Naturally  we  begin  to  ask  for  the  report  of  the 
opposite  side,  in  the  interest  of  fair  play.  Let 
us  now  hear  from  the  Missourians,  if  they  have 
anything  else  besides  that  border  yell  for  our 
instruction.  But  alas !  they  have  no  voice  of 
the  literary  kind;  on  the  whole,  they  do  not 
write  or  read  writing;  it  is  said  that  the  majority 
could  hardly  read  the  printed  page.  So  we  have 


PART  /.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.          67 

to  take  the  account  of  them  and  their  deeds  from 
the  pens  of  their  enemies.  Still  of  their  general 
purpose  no  doubt  can  exist :  they  intended  to 
make  Kansas  a  Slave-State,  and  thereby  perpet 
uate  a  Union  Slave-State  producing.  We  have, 
therefore,  to  regard  them  as  the  protagonists  of 
the  Southern  Oligarchy,  which  is  making  a 
desperate  effort  to  keep  its  power,  that  of  a 
minority,  over  the  majority  of  the  United  States, 
the  prize  for  which  they  grasp  being  one  more 
Slave-State. 

No  doubt  it  was  a  barbarous  time  and  used  a 
good  deal  of  barbarous  English,  which  the  digni 
fied  Muse  of  History  makes  a  wry  face  at  in  spite 
of  her  dignity.  Barbarians  will  use  barbarisms 
and  a  barbarous  time  finds  its  corresponding 
expression  in  a  barbarous  dialect.  Shocking  it 
is  to  say  the  rude  things  of  the  Borderers  in  the 
presence  of  the  Muse  so  daintily  trained  in  these 
days  at  the  University. 

Still  we  would  like  to  catch  some  glimpse  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Missouri  movement  speaking 
in  their  own  right,  and  not  through  the  lips  of 
their  Yankee  antagonists.  The  best  that  we  can 
do  is  to  glean  a  few  shreds  of  their  speeches 
which  have  been  preserved  chiefly  by  Kobinsou 
in  his  book  (The  Kansas  Conflict),  and  which 
were  originally  printed  in  the  border  newspapers. 
Atchison,  Senator  from  Missouri  and  Vice- 
President  of  the  United  States  after  the  death 


68  THE  TKN  YEARS'    WAR. 

of  W.  R.  King,  seems  to  have  been  the  chief 
actor  and  spokesman  in  these  forays.  Here  is  a 
report  of  one  of  his  utterances:  "  He  was  for 
meeting  these  philanthropic  knaves  peaceaUy 
at  the  ballot-box,  and  out-voting  them.  If  we 
cannot  do  this,  it  is  an  omen  that  the  institution 
of  slavery  must  fall  in  this  and  other  Southern 
States,  but  it  would  fall  after  much  strife,  civil 
war,  and  bloodshed."  Such  was  Atchison's 
ensanguined  vaticination  of  the  coming  struggle, 
very  true,  but  possible  to  be  made  void  according 
to  him  by  out-voting  the  Kansas  Free-State 
men  through  fraud.  Yet  this  was  just  the  way 
which  brought  on  the  bloody  conflict.  Note, 
too,  the  peculiar  consciousness  here:  if  we  can 
only  seize  the  forms  of  the  law,  the  right  is  of 
no  great  consequence. 

Atchison  always  claimed  that  his  method  was 
"pacific,"  and  he  "would  not  punish  a  man 
who  merely  entertained  abstract  opinions,"  even 
about  slavery.  On  the  other  hand  Stringfellow, 
the  second  leading  chieftain,  seems  to  have  been 
the  fire-eater,  radical  in  his  violence,  quite  to  the 
point  of  disregarding  the  Executive:  "What 
right  has  Governor  Reeder,"  he  exclaims,  "  to 
rule  Missourians  in  Kansas  !"  He  scores  "  those 
who  have  qualms  as  to  violating  laws,  State  and 
National,"  and  his  advice  is  "to  vote  at  the 
point  of  the  bowie-knife  and  revolver,  in  de 
fiance  of  Reeder  and  his  Myrmidons."  So  the 


PART  I.  —  THE  SECOND  I^VASIOX.  69 

two  leaders,  Atchison  and  Stringfellow,  are  evi 
dently  of  an  opposite  cast,  though  both  agree 
that  Missourians  must  vote  in  Kansas,  and  make 
it  a  Slave-State.  But  the  one  says  "  peace 
ably,"  while  the  other  vociferates  "  at  the  point 
of  the  bowie-knife  and  revolver."  Thus  we  catch 
notes  of  discord  among  the  invaders;  evidently 
they  have  a  radical  and  a  conservative  set  also, 
and  manifest  differences  of  character  and  opin 
ion,  such  as  we  see  in  the  Free-State  ranks.  It 
is  a  phenomenon  which  repeatedly  recurs : 
the  anti-slavery  extremist  and  the  pro-slavery 
extremist  reach,  even  if  by  opposite  roads,  the 
same  camp  of  Disunion.  Yancey  could  well 
have  subscribed  to  Garrison's  view  of  the  Con 
stitution  as  «« an  agreement  with  hell,  and  a 
covenant  with  death." 

Striugfellow  exhorts:  "mark  every  scoun 
drel  among  you  that  is  in  the  least  tainted  with 
free-soil] sm,  and  exterminate  him."  This  has 
the  true  ring  of  the  inquisition  into  private  be 
liefs.  On  the  other  hand  Atchison  would  not 
punish  a  man  "  for  abstract  opinions,"  as  long 
as  he  does  not  attempt  to  carry  them  out.  Such 
is  the  difference  between  the  leaders,  the  one  in 
his  way  is  institutional,  the  other  revolutionary ; 
they  are,  as  it  were,  inverted  counterparts  of 
what  may  be  seen  at  Lawrence  represented  in 
Charles  Robinson  on  the  one  hand  and  John- 
Brown  on  the  other,  the  latter  being  in  this 


70  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

regard  Stringfellow  abolitionizcd.  No  Mephis- 
topheles,  corresponding  to  Lane,  appears  among 
the  Missourians,  unless  they  all  be  of  his  spawn. 

From  Atchison,  who  had  a  genuine  prophetic 
strain  in  his  brooding  soul,  innst  be  cited  an 
other  utterance  which  a  patient  historian 
(Rhodes,  Hist.  U.  S.,  II.,  p.  100)  has  dug  up 
from  the  vast  mounds  of  the  buried  newspaper- 
dom  of  the  past:  *'  If  Kansas  is  abolitionized, 
Missouri  ceases  to  be  a  Slave-State,  New  Mexico 
becomes  a  Free-State,  but  if  we  secure  Kansas 
as  a  Slave-State,  Missouri  is  secure;  New  Mexico 
and  Southern  California,  if  not  all  of  it,  be 
comes  a  Slave-State ;  in  a  word  the  prosperity 
or  ruin  of  the  whole  South  depends  on  the  Kan 
sas  struggle." 

This  is  a  very  suggestive  prophecy,  full  of 
far-reaching  presentiment  which  really  antici 
pates  the  doom  of  slavery.  For  Kansas  is 
plainly  not  going  to  be  a  Slave-State  even 
through  violence ;  not  only  will  Missouri  be  lost, 
but  "the  ruin  of  the  whole  South  "  is  impend 
ing,  on  account  of  this  Kansas  struggle.  Atchi 
son,  however,  seems  to  think  that  he  can  block 
the  wheels  of  Civilization,  if  he  can  somehow 
steal  the  legal  forms  of  government  from  the  peo 
ple  of  Kansas.  But  he  is  taking  just  the  right 
way  for  driving  slavery  not  merely  out  of  Kansas 
:md  the  Territories,  but  out  of  the  United  States, 
out  of  America,  and  finally  out  of  the  World. 


PARTI.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.  71 

For  it  is  becoming  manifest  that  the  World- 
Spirit  has  decreed  another  way  for  training  the 
backward  peoples  and  races  into  civilization. 
Hitherto  they  have  all  passed  through  a  period 
of  slavery;  every  country  in  Europe  has  had  it  in 
some  form,  but  has  thrown  it  off.  This  was  not 
so  difficult,  since  the  slaves  were  chiefly  of  the 
same  race,  often  of  the  same  nationality.  But 
now  the  racial  difference  enters  with  its  prob 
lem ;  the  skin,  nose,  eye,  hair,  the  whole 
physique  proclaims  the  slave.  Still  he  also  is 
to  be  set  free,  and  another  way  besides  that 
of  slavery  is  to  be  taken  in  order  to  civilize 
him  and  to  make  him  capable  of  free  insti 
tutions.  The  pedagogical  way  we  may  call  it; 
the  backward  man  is  to  be  sent  to  school  and  is 
to  be  educated  by  the  civilized  man,  who  is  to 
impart  to  his  less  advanced  brother  his  own 
institutional  freedom  as  his  greatest  boon.  In 
fact  the  World-Spirit  has  always  kept  a  school 
for  the  nations,  though  more  or  less  veiled;  but 
now  it  has  become  unveiled,  explicit,  acknowl 
edged.  And  education  in  such  a  school  is  not  so 
much  academic  as  institutional. 

IV. 

While  the  Missourians  of  the  border  were 
lying  in  camp  along  the  Wakerusa,  the  Thirty - 
fourth  Congress  met  at  Washington,  the  center, 
December,  1855.  The  President  and  the  Senate 


72  THE   TEN  FEARS'   WAR. 

were  unchanged  politically,  but  the  new  House 
of  Representatives  was  the  product  of  the  elec 
tions  of  1854  which  showed  in  the  North  a 
strong  reaction  against  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
legislation.  That  year  (1854)  had  been  remark 
able  for  a  general  dissolution  of  the  old  political 
parties,  and  the  various  attempts  to  unite  the 
floating  fragments  into  new  organizations.  It 
was  evident  that  a  spirit  was  at  work  in  the  peo 
ple,  which  showed  them  deeply  dissatisfied  with 
existing  conditions.  This  spirit  had  been  first 
roused  by  the  passage  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill,  it  had  been  kept  active  and  indeed  irritated 
by  the  First  Invasion  of  Kansas,  and  now  it  was 
going  through  another  paroxysm  on  account  of 
the  Second  Invasion. 

Such  was  the  public  feeling  when  the  national 
representatives  met  and  tried  to  organize  the 
House  by  the  election  of  a  Speaker.  At  once  all 
the  diverse,  refractory  elements  of  the  time  began 
to  show  themselves.  The  members  could  not  be 
classified  on  former  political  lines;  they  truly 
represented,  that  is,  imaged  the  state  of  the 
people.  The  House  began  seething  like  Kansas, 
which  had  transferred  its  conflict  to  the  Capitol, 
and  thrown  it  into  a  kind  of  Wakerusa  War. 

Since  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
{i  strong  dissolving  process  had  been  going  on  in 
t!io  country.  The  Democratic,  Whig,  and  even 
Tree-Soil  parties  showed  more  or  less  disinle»Ta- 


PART  I.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.  73 

tion.  Temperance  entered  politics,  bands  of 
women  began  to  make  crusades  against  saloons 
and  destroy  liquor.  But  the  most  peculiar  man 
ifestation  of  the  great  break-up  was  the  sudden 
rise  and  success  of  the  so-called  Know-nothing 
party,  followed  by  an  equally  sudden  decline 
and  evanishment.  It  was  directed  against  the 
foreigner,  and  especially  against  the  influence  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Hierarchy.  It  also  de 
clared  hostility  to  German  free-thinking  and 
French  infidelity.  Its  main  doctrine  was  sum 
marized  in  the  pithy  statement:  "Americans 
should  rule  America."  In  so  far  as  the  Know- 
nothing  party  directed  attention  to  the  defects 
of  the  naturalization  laws,  and  to  the  fraud  and 
demagogy  connected  with  the  suffrage  of  the 
foreign-born  element,  it  did  good.  But  in  prin 
ciple  it  was  thoroughly  un-American,  though  it 
called  itself  the  American  party.  Its  members 
discredited  their  own  ancestors  who,  not  so  many 
years  before,  had  been  immigrants.  It  ignored 
the  great  missionary  function  of  the  United 
States  for  the  uplifting  and  enfranchising  of  the 
people  of  the  old  world  who  would  come  to  our 
shores.  Its  method  was  even  more  un-American 
than  its  principle.  It  was  a  secret,  oath-bound 
political  association  with  grips,  degrees,  signs, 
and  pass-words.  It  was  more  Jesuitical  than  the 
Jesuits.  Publicity,  the  great  American  correc 
tive  of  public  ills,  it  shunned  and  took  the  way 


74  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

of  conspirators  under  a  despotic  government. 
The  fact  is  suggestive  that  the  chief  men  of  all 
parties,  anti-slavery  and  pro-slavery,  Whig  and 
Democratic,  soon  came  to  denounce  it.  The 
bloom  of  it  hardly  lasted  a  year;  it  too  was  rent 
in  twain  by  the  great  coming  question,  both  sides 
of  which  it  sought  to  embody.  Know-nothing- 
ism  was  hardly  more  than  a  transitional  humor  of 
the  people  in  passing  from  an  old  to  a  new  party. 
It  Avas  a  caprice,  a  comic  contradiction  of  the 
Folk-Soul,  which,  being  soon  recognized,  passed 
off  with  a  laugh.  We  may  call  it  a  comic  inter 
lude  in  the  present  great  drama,  for  the  very 
name  of  the  party  was  a  joke  and  productive  of 
jokes  everywhere.  There  was  a  stream  of  mys 
tery  in  it  which  diverted  the  people  like  the  trick 
of  a  juggler,  particularly  at  a  time  when  their 
minds  were  at  sea,  and  puzzling  over  what  ought 
to  be  done  next. 

Now  the  people  in  this  mood  had  elected  a 
national  House  of  Eepresentatives,  which  is  the 
aforementioned  body  holding  its  first  session  at 
Washington  and  trying  to  elect  a  Speaker.  Polit 
ically  it  was  a  chaotic  mass  of  Know-nothings, 
Democrats,  Whigs,  all  of  whom  were  still  further 
divided  into  anti-slavery  and  pro-slavery  fac 
tions.  Besides  there  were  a  few  members 
already  called  Republicans.  It  was  soon  seen 
that  the  old  party  divisions  were  vanishing  into 
a,  new  division,  which  ran  a  lino  of  battle 


FART  I.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.          75 

through  the  entire  membership  on  the  ques 
tion :  For  or  against  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill? 
Thus  the  Kansas  conflict  had  entered  and  was 
aligning  the  two  sides  of  the  House.  The 
Wakerusa  affair  occurring  contemporaneously 
and  bringing  new  and  exciting  incidents  all  the 
while,  wrought  powerfully  upon  the  House  in  its 
present  fluctuating  condition.  Many  candidates 
for  Speaker — and  in  the  Speaker's  election  lay 
the  test  —  were  taken  up  and  then  dropped.  For 
nearly  two  months  the  hurly-burly  balloting 
lasted,  till  on  the  one-hundred  and  thirty-third 
ballot  Banks  of  Massachusetts  was  chosen.  He 
had  been  elected  to  Congress  as  a  Know-nothing, 
but  that  issue  had  dropped  out  totally,  since  the 
ground  of  his  success  lay  in  his  statement  that 
he  favored  the  restoration  of  Missouri  Compro 
mise  line  of  1820,  and  that  Congress  should 
exclude  slavery  from  Territories.  Entirely 
visible  does  the  new  alignment  of  parties  become 
in  the  first  victory  at  the  Capital.  The  Republi 
can  Party  has  now  distinctly  risen  out  of  its 
local  into  its  national  career.  It  had  already 
started  at  several  points  in  the  West  sporadically ; 
but  here  it  is,  springing  up  in  the  heart  of  the 
Nation.  Passing  from  the  center  to  the  border 
we  chronicle  a  similar  victory.  The  Missouri 
invaders,  completely  baffled  by  Robinson's  strat 
egy,  had  returned  to  their  homes  for  the  winter. 
The  new  Party  has  then  actually  appeared  on 


76  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

the  floor  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  having 
gone  to  the  East  from  the  West  and  nationalized 
itself  at  Washington.  But  where  is  its  great 
leader?  Local  leaders  it  has  in  abundance, 
training  for  the  struggle  —  but  a  towering  na 
tional  leader?  All  w7ere  soon  turning  their 
eyes  toward  Seward  as  the  supreme  man,  crying 
out,  Here  we  are  read}7,  lead  us.  But  Seward 
hung  fire.  The  hesitation  lay  partly  in  his  own 
nature,  and  will  rise  up  against  him  hereafter,  but 
also  partly  in  the  political  condition  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  which  could  not  move  as  freely  as 
the  Western  States.  Chase,  next  to  Seward  in 
importance,  was  precluded  from  the  national 
leadership  of  his  Party  by  certain  limitations  of 
character  as  well  by  reasons  of  political  expedi 
ency.  Sumner,  the  brilliant  rhetorician  of  the 
rising  Party,  could  hardly  be  called  a  statesman, 
and  had  no  gift  of  great  leadership  of  the  peo 
ple,  since  his  speeches  often  left  manv  in  doubt 
whether  or  not  he  was  thoroughly  an  institu 
tional  man,  whether  or  not  his  anti-slaveryism 
did  not  outweigh  and  even  jeopard  his  constitu 
tionalism.  At  last  in  the  fall  campaign  of  New 
York  Seward  spoke  and  sounded  the  key-note  of 
the  new  Party.  But  already  in  the  fall  of  1854, 
a  year  before  Seward,  the  future  leader  of  the 
Party,  then  quite  unknown  outside  of  his  State, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  had  arisen  and  had  outlined 
in  strong  terse  expressions  the  leading  doctrines 


PART  I.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.  77 

of  the  new  organization.  Moreover  he  appeared 
in  oratorical  combat  with  his  great  competitor 
Douglas,  whom  four  years  later  he  will  meet 
again  in  a  contest  larger  than  national,  so  large 
that  we  must  call  it  world-historical.  But  the 
time  is  not  ready,  and  perhaps  he  is  not  ready, 
for  entering  upon  the  great  coming  task.  After 
having  had  two  public  tournaments,  he  and 
Douglas,  at  the  request  of  the  latter,  agree  to 
speak  no  more  during  the  campaign.  But  his 
speech  at  Peoria  (Oct.  16th,  1854)  written  out 
by  him  and  printed  in  the  Illinois  State  Journal , 
became  the  chief  political  document  of  the  Party 
in  the  North-West,  and  prepared  the  way  for 
Lincoln's  leadership.  Did  Seward  ever  read 
Lincoln's  speech?  In  the  absence  of  direct  tes 
timony,  who  can  tell?  But  one  thing  is  certain  : 
the  coming  Party  had  started  in  the  West  with 
its  lines  laid  down  and  with  its  leader  at  the  head 
a  year  before  Seward  waked  up  in  the  East. 
Thus  Lincoln  was  getting  his  new  house  ready, 
while  Seward  was  still  debating  whether  he  would 
stay  in  the  old  Whig  house  or  move  into  the 
new  one.  As  these  two  men  are  hereafter  to  be 
rivals  for  Republican  leadership,  we  must  con 
sider  the  record  of  both. 

The  great  Democratic  statesman  of  the 
North,  Douglas,  stands  in  a  peculiar  interme 
diate  relation  to  the  rising  Party  through  his 
doctrine  of  Popular  •  Sovereignty.  He  might 


78  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

have  stepped  forward  and  become  its  leader; 
hut  he  stood  still,  or  perchance  stepped  back 
ward.  As  already  indicated,  he  lost  his  first 
great  opportunity  of  making  himself  the  repre 
sentative  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Age  by  not  putting 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  Kansas  Free-State 
men.  The  invaders  violated  Popular  Sover 
eignty,  his  special  principle.  A  decided 
majority  of  the  men  who  made  the  Topeka  Con 
stitution  were  Douglas  Democrats,  though  their 
leader  at  first  had  no  good  word  for  them. 
Douglas  bitterly  assailed  the  Emigrant  Aid 
Society,  yet  its  whole  policy  was  to  settle  slavery 
in  Kansas  by  vote  of  the  people.  Eli  Thayer, 
its  founder,  in  his  speeches  planted  himself 
squarely  on  Popular  Sovereignty,  and  asked 
nothing  better  than  a  fair  chance  through  an 
honest  ballot.  But  Douglas  ignored  his  true  sup 
porters  at  the  North,  and  thought  that  he  mu->t 
still  bid  for  Southern  assistance  in  the  coming 
Presidential  Convention  (1856). 

V. 

In  Kansas  we  may  still  see  the  Missouri 
borderers  who  took  part  in  the  Second  Invasion, 
wending  their  weary  way  homeward  in  an  uglv 
mood.  Baffled,  humiliated,  but  more  revengeful 
than  ever,  they  are  already  planning  some  new 
method  of  catching  and  destroying  that  elusive 
and  even  tricksy  spirit  which  has  so  decidedly 


PART  I.  -  THE  SECOND  INVASION-.  79 

foiled  them.  But  how  can  the  thing  be  done? 
Evidently  the  Free-State  leaders  who  have  shown 
themselves  such  consummate  strategists,  must  be 
gotten  hold  of  in  some  way,  and  then  leader- 
less  Lawrence  can  be  destroyed.  Particularly 
Robinson,  whom  Atchison  acknowledges  to 
have  completely  out-maneuvered  the  Missouri ans, 
including  himself,  has  to  be  reached,  lest  "  his 
tactics  "  again  give  him  "  all  the  advantage  as  to 
the  cause  of  the  quarrel. ' '  Such  was  the  problem 
haunting  the  Missourians  as  they  crossed  the 
border  in  their  backward  inarch. 

The  fact  is,  the  anti-government  with  its 
shadowy  existence  but  very  real  power  perplexed 
those  dazed  Missouri  champions.  And  there  was 
some  mystery,  soul-harassing,  in  its  subtle 
operation.  For  we  Missourians  have  the  actual 
government,  plain  and  palpable,  in  the  Territorial 
Legislature  and  in  the  United  States  officials 
with  Washington  at  their  back ;  and  yet  it  shows 
itself  wholly  insubstantial  compared  with  that 
phantom  government  which  the  arch-magician 
Robinson  has  conjured  up  and  made  appear  as  a 
very  substantial  reality  for  rallying  and  inspiring 
the  Free-State  men.  How  can  we  catch,  and 
then  stab  or  shoot  that  spectral  shape  which  cen 
ters  the  opposition  to  our  authority? 

Impossible  is  such  a  task;  being  a  spirit,  it 
cannot  well  be  reached  by  bowie-knife  or  bullet, 
but  has  a  strange  power  of  employing  and  direct- 


80  THE  TEN  YEAR&   WAR. 

ing  weapons  on  its  own  behalf.  For  the  anti- 
governittent  represents  the  spirit  of  Law,  though 
now  deprived  of  its  body.  Wrong  having  be 
come  formally  legal,  Eight  rises  up  as  its  ghostly 
counterpart,  though  formally  illegal,  and  makes 
the  anti-government.  Thus  a  phantom  govern 
ment  which  is  the  reality,  the  truth,  marches 
forth  in  open  daylight,  and  grapples  with  a  real 
government  which  is  a  phantom,  a  fraud.  No 
such  encounter  has  hardly  happened  among  mor 
tals  since  that  ancient  combat  on  the  plains  of 
Troy  when  the  Greeks  and  Trojans  fought  around 
the  image  of  a  hero  in  their  midst  when  he  him 
self  had  been  borne  elsewhere  by  the  aid  of  the 
favoring  Goddess.  And  now  we  may  see  the 
valiant  Kansans  fighting  around  and  for  a  shadow 
which  is  real,  against  a  reality  which  is  a  shadow. 
And  on  the  other  side  the  embattled  Missourians 
are  hurrying  over  the  border  with  a  grandiose 
display  of  war  to  defend  a  reality  which  is  but  a 
shadow,  against  a  shadow  which  is  the  reality. 
Such  is  the  mixture  of  ghosts  and  corporalities 
along  that  Kansas-Missouri  line,  a  veritable  see 
saw  lasting  for  years  between  Spirit  and  Form, 
or  Soul  and  Body  :  the  dis-embodied  Soul  trying 
heroically  to  get  possession  of  its  own  Body,  and 
the  dis-souled  Body  trying  to  lay  or  even  kill  its 
own  haunting  and  tormenting  Soul. 

Thus  the  Missourians  and  the  Kansans  keep 
up    an    ever-recurring  contest  out  there  on  the 


PART  I.  —  THE  SECOND  INVASION.          81 

border:  the  one  being  wholly  unable  to  get  or 
even  to  get  at  the  other's  Soul,  and  the  other  in 
turn  being  equally  unable  to  get  or  get  into  the 
one's  Body,  till  at  last  on  a  day  the  hour  of  re 
demption  strikes  and  the  straying  Soul  (of  Right) 
slips  into  its  bodily  counterpart  (the  Law)  and 
becomes  incorporate.  Whereof  the  account  is 
given  in  a  future  chapter. 

But  this  happy  consummation  cannot  yet  be,  the 
grand  Kansas  discipline  of  Soul-wandering  is  still 
to  continue.  A  cunning  scheme  is  hatched  to  rob 
the  Free-State  men  of  their  leaders,  through  a 
new  device  of  the  legal  machine  which  has  been 
so  successfully  made  to  work  injustice  in  the 
name  of  justice.  Then  the  wolves  having  banned 
the  shepherds  can  easily  take  possession  of  the 
flock  and  wreak  their  savagery  upon  it  in  a  fresh 
invasion  of  Kansas. 


82  THE  TEN  YEARS*   WAR. 


Invasion* 

The  winter  of  1855—6  in  Kansas  seemed  to 
sympathize  with  the  invaders  by  inflicting  hard 
ship  and  suffering  upon  the  ill-housed  and  ill- 
prepared  settlers.  Mrs.  Robinson,  a  daughter 
of  New  England  and  used  to  icy  blasts,  expressed 
herself  thus:  "To  face  a  Missouri  mob  is 
nothing  to  facing  these  winds  which  sweep  over 
the  prairies."  External  nature  environing  man 
appeared  to  pre-figure  his  social  condition  and 
even  his  mental  tumult.  It  is  indeed  a  Per 
verted  World  without  and  within ;  the  violators 
of  Law  are  its  executors,  the  innocent  are  the  vic 
tims,  the  unjust  not  only  escape  but  have  all  the 
instrumentalities  of  justice  in  their  power,  per 
verting  them  to  the  purpose  of  injustice.  The 
Judiciary  is  now  to  be  dragged  into  conflict,  and 
brought  to  employ  the  form  of  legality  for  slay 
ing  its  soul. 

The  pitiless  winter  did  not  wholly  stop  activity 
on  either  side.  Robinson  wrote  in  Januarv, 
1856,  that  he  had  knowledge  of  extensive 
preparations  in  Missouri  for  the  destruction  of 
Lawrence  and  all  the  Free-State  settlements. 
He  sent  his  information  to  the  President,  to 
Congress,  but  especially  to  the  Governors  of  the 
Northern  States,  nearly  all  of  whom  were  now 


PART  I.  —  THE  THIRD  INVASION.  83 

sympathetic  with  the  Free-State  aspiration  of 
Kansas.  Six  men  went  East  to  buy  munitions  of 
war  and  to  raise  an  army  "for  the  defense  of 
Kansas  and  the  Union."  In  the  spring  when  the 
weather  had  removed  its  ban,  a  stream  of  emi 
grants  from  the  North  began  again  to  flow  across 
the  border  and  spread  out  over  the  plains  of 
Kansas,  each  one  taking  his  place  with  gun  in 
hand  somewhere  in  that  longitudinal  line  of 
farms  erected  as  a  barrier  against  Missouri  and 
the  South. 

But  Missouri  and  the  South  were  not  idle. 
Bands  of  men  from  the  Southern  States  began 
to  come,  the  largest  and  most  notable  of  which 
was  organized  in  South  Carolina,  Georgia  and 
Alabama,  by  Colonel  Buford,  consisting  of  280 
people  whom  we  shall  soon  find  among  the  in 
vaders.  Both  sections,  North  and  South,  were 
openly  preparing  for  the  contest.  Still  Robin- 
sou  hoped  and  believed  that  he  "  could  conquer 
without  bloodshed  "  if  his  suggestions  were  acted 
upon  in  the  Northern  States.  His  strategy  had 
once  made  the  invaders  face  about  and  take  the 
back  track  into  Missouri.  He  thought  he  could 
perform  the  same  maneuver  again  with  success 
and  avoid  war. 

But  a  blow  now  descended  upon  him  and  his 
party  from  a  source  which  he  apparently  did  not 
take  into  account.  The  pro-slavery  officials  con 
cocted  a  scheme  of  getting  rid  of  the  Free-State 


84  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

leaders  who  had  so  often  baffled  them.  They 
utilized  for  this  purpose  the  Judiciary  of  the 
Territory  whose  Chief  Justice,  Lecompte,  has 
won  the  distinction  of  being  called  the  second 
Jeffries.  He  instructed  the  grand  jury  that  those 
who  resisted  the  Territorial  Legislature  were 
guilty  of  treason  against  the  United  States  and 
were  to  be  proceeded  against  by  law.  This  was 
a  blow  aimed  at  the  entire  Topeka  move 
ment,  and  the  anti-government  of  Robinson. 
The  grand  jury  indicted  at  once  Robinson, 
Lane,  and  Reeder,  with  other  prominent  Free- 
State  men,  for  treason.  The  same  grand 
jury  declared  two  newspapers  of  Lawrence 
and  its  Free- State  Hotel  to  be  public  nuisances 
and  recommended  their  abatement.  In  this  way 
the  Federal  Marshal  was  brought  into  the  contest, 
and  opposition  meant  resistance  to  the  United 
States.  The  result  is  that  Lane  decamps  secretly, 
Reeder  escapes  from  the  Territory  in  disguise 
after  thrilling  adventures,  and  Robinson  is 
captured  on  his  way  to  the  East  at  Lexington, 
Missouri,  and  is  brought  back  the  captive  of  his 
foes  to  Kansas  for  trial.  The  work  of  Lecompte 
succeeded  in  making  the  Free-State  men  leader- 
less  and  hence  helpless. 

This  was  the  opportunity  for  a  new  move 
against  Lawrence,  which,  being  without  a  head, 
can  now  be  beheaded  by  the  chivalrous  border 
ers,  There  must  be  a  pretext  for  the  attack, 


PART  I.—  THE  THIRD  INVASION.  85 

and  this  pretext  Sheriff  Jones  was  to  furnish. 
He  went  to  the  town  for  the  purpose  of  arrest 
ing  Wood,  one  of  the  chief  rescuers  of  Bran 
son.  He  was  foiled  in  the  attempt,  and  then 
tried  his  hand  on  others,  one  of  whom  gave  him 
a  stinging  slap  in  the  face.  That  was  enough. 
He  demanded  of  the  Governor  a  detachment  of 
Federal  soldiers  to  assist  him  in  executing  his 
writs.  He  succeeded  in  heating  the  enmity  of 
the  Free-State  community  to  the  boiling  point ; 
during  the  excitement  a  frenzied  youth  shot  him 
in  the  back,  the  wound  not  being  very  serious. 
Soon  the  news  flew  up  and  down  the  Missouri 
border  that  Sheriff  Jones  had  been  killed  at 
Lawrence,  rousing  an  intense  feeling  of  ven 
geance  against  the  hated  town.  But  the  citizens 
of  Lawrence,  in  town  meeting  assembled,  dis 
owned  the  act,  and  offered  five  hundred  dollars 
reward  for  the  apprehension  of  the  culprit. 

At  this  juncture  the  United  States  Marshal, 
Donaldson,  comes  upon  the  stage  to  play  his 
part.  He  summons  a  posse  to  arrest  the  traitors 
of  Lawrence,  and  to  abate  the  condemned  nui 
sances.  This  was  the  golden  opportunity,  and 
again  the  Missourians  responded,  making  their 
third  armed  Invasion  of  Kansas.  Lawrence, 
leaderless  and  utterly  paralyzed,  offered  no  re 
sistance  and  yielded  every  point  with  a  prayer 
for  mercy.  Some  of  the  citizens  charged  with 


86  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

treason  were  arrested,  and  the  printing-presses 
were  thrown  into  the  river. 

The  final  act,  however,  was  still  to  come.  A 
crier  announces :  Marshal  Donaldson  is  done 
with  you,  Sheriff  Jones  now  summons  you  for  his 
posse,  as  he  has  something  for  you  to  do.  Here 
was  the  pivot  of  the  whole  scheme,  evident!}- 
gotten  up  by  the  Marshal  and  the  Sheriff  together. 
Jones  had  attained  the  long-sought  end  of  wreak, 
ing  vengeance  upon  Lawrence.  The  Free-State 
Hotel,  already  dismantled,  was  bombarded  and 
blown  up,  and  then  the  torch  was  applied  to  the 
ruins.  Stores  were  rifled,  houses  were  pillaged, 
the  residence  of  Governor  Robinson  was  given  to 
the  flames.  In  fine  the  town  was  gutted,  but  the 
people  were  left;  the  threats  to  exterminate  the 
Free-State  men  were  not  yet  carried  out.  Such 
was  the  deed  known  in  History  as  the  Sack  of 
Lawrence,  the  outcome  of  the  Third  Invasion. 

But  the  victory  had  a  number  of  consequences 
which  wrought  worse  than  defeat.  It  introduced 
dissension  into  the  ranks  of  the  invaders.  Two 
Colonels  from  the  distant  South  openly  disap 
proved  of  the  conduct  and  work  of  the  malignant 
Jones.  Atchison  was  again  present  and  exerted 
himself  to  restrain  the  outrages,  "  riding  on 
horseback  to  the  different  companies  and  making 
speeches  in  the  interest  of  peace."  But  Jones 
was  their  hero  and  they  followed  him.  Gov 
ernor  Shannon  condemned  the  Marshal's  posse, 


PAET  L— THE  THIRD  INVASION.  87 

so  did  President  Pierce,  doubtless  beholding  in 
his  mind's  eye  the  Democratic  Convention  ready 
to  meet.  Even  Judge  Lecompte  thought  that 
Donaldson's  action  was  illegal.  It  was  evident 
that  the  invaders  were  breaking  loose  from  the 
control  of  their  leaders,  and  that  this  Missouri 
plan  of  making  Kansas  a  Slave-State  must  be 
abandoned.  All  the  higher  officials  disclaimed 
the  deed  of  violence,  which  seems  to  have  been 
concocted  by  the  Marshal  and  Sheriff  in  secret 
concert.  The  Topeka  Legislature  met  not  long 
after  these  events,  but  it  was  dispersed  by  United 
States  soldiers  —  which  act,  however,  was  dis 
approved  even  by  the  Administration  at 
Washington. 

What  now  has  become  of  Robinson's  anti- 
government  with  its  machinery  broken,  its 
capital  sacked,  its  leader  a  prisoner  of  his  foes? 
Strange  to  say,  it  has  won  a  victory  more  com 
plete  than  ever  before.  The  principle  of  these 
Missouri  invasions  is  now  seen  in  its  true  char 
acter  and  purpose,  and  is  discredited,  temporarily 
at  least,  even  by  the  Administration.  Though 
another  invasion  takes  place,  it  will  be  turned 
back  and  thwarted  by  the  great  United  States 
Government  itself  instead  of  the  little  outlawed 
anti-government,  and  a  real  Governor,  Geary, 
will  do  the  work  of  the  shadowy  Governor,  Eob- 
iuson,  now  more  shadowy  than  ever  in  the  prison 
of  his  enemies. 


88  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAE. 

But  the  chief  effect  and  the  great  historic 
purpose  of  the  Sack  of  Lawrence  was  the  might}' 
response  of  the  Northern  Folk-Soul  to  the  woes 
of  Kansas,  which  kept  agitating  it,  and  working 
it  over  and  kneading  it  through  and  through  with 
a  new  conviction  that  not  only  Kansas  must  be  a 
Free-State,  but  that  there  must  be  no  m»re  Slave- 
States  in  this  Union.  A  little  over  a  year  has 
passed  since  the  First  Invasion,  and  now  the 
Third  has  spent  itself,  bringing  results  freighted 
with  the  future.  We  may  deem  it  the  first  year 
of  the  Ten  Years'  War  which  is  the  theme  of 
the  present  book.  We  have  seen  the  irritation 
going  forth  continuously  from  Washington,  fol 
lowed  by  the  agonies  of  Kansas,  which,  echoing 
from  press,  pulpit  and  platform,  have  been  the 
school  of  the  North  preparing  it  for  the  great 
task  looming  up  ever  more  distinctly  in  the  future. 

And  that  small  town  of  Lawrence  —  what  a 
burden  has  been  laid  upon  it  by  the  time,  by  the 
Spirit  of  the  Age,  which  seems  to  have  chosen 
and  trained  it  as  the  bearer  of  the  conflict  ever 
getting  more  visible.  It  was  born  in  a  war  of 
titles;  the  very  laud  was  contested;  when  the 
Northern  settler  would  begin  to  work  upon  his 
property,  a  Missouri  counter-claim  would  be  sure 
to  appear.  Thus  the  soil,  after  it  was  bought 
and  cultivated,  had  to  be  won  anew  and  freed 
from  the  foreign  invader.  But  the  greater, 
universal  task  was  the  institutional  one:  to 


PAET  I.  —  THE  THIRD  INVASION.  89 

secure  the  Free-State.  Of  this  task  Lawrence 
was  the  very  soul  as  well  as  the  most  energetic 
performer;  no  wonder  that  the  enemy  thought 
that  if  they  could  destroy  her,  the  cause 
itself  would  be  destroyed.  Truly  Lawrence  dur 
ing  this  period  was  the  World-Spirit  incarnate, 
the  little  town  had  in  it  the  presence  of  History, 
yea  of  Universal  History,  at  whose  behest  she 
seemed  to  be  moving  and  suffering. 

But  tell  us,  ye  Powers,  will  there  be  no  re 
quital  for  these  deeds  of  violence?  Lies  it  not 
in  the  Divine  Order  that  the  Missouri  towns  and 
counties  which  have  sent  forth  and  maintained 
these  men  of  wrong,  will  see  an  invasion  coming 
the  other  way?  Wait;  a  little  more  than  half  a 
decade  will  pass  when  the  Kansas  borderers, 
trained  by  these  acts  to  rapine  and  murder,  and 
burning,  for  revenge,  will  feel  that  their  turn  has 
come  and  will  be  let  loose  upon  the  Missouri 
side,  sweeping  down  upon  it  under  the  command 
of  the  Devil  himself  called  up  from  Inferno  by 
these  iniquities  —  Mephistopheles  Lane  —  in 
whose  path  the  site  of  thriving  villages  will  be 
marked  by  charred  ruins  and  a  few  standing 
chimneys  in  the  desert. 

Still  further  we  may  carry  our  outlook  in  this 
matter.  Among  these  invaders  we  hear  of  con 
tingents  from.  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  and 
Alabama,  which  States  seem  to  lie  far  away  from 
the  scene  of  danger,  quite  out  of  the  reach  of 


90  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

retribution.  But  Nemesis  has  long  arms,  and 
can  stretch  them,  given  her  time,  to  any  point 
on  this  terraqueous  globe.  Not  a  decade  will 
pass  before  Sherman  will  be  in  Georgia  at  the 
head  of  an  irresistible  army  which  rips  open  the 
State  from  North-West  to  South-East,  and  then 
passes  to  South  Carolina  which  also  is  to  get  a 
taste  of  the  return  of  the  deed  upon  the  doer. 
Thus  w7e  again  behold  an  interlinking  of  the 
beginning  and  end  of  the  Ten  Years'  War,  in 
a  circling  chain  of  events ;  there  is  an  inner  con 
nection  between  the -first  invasion  of  Kansas  and 
the  last  counter-invasion  of  the  South  by  Sher 
man.  A  great  national  house-cleaning  has  started 
on  the  Western  border,  not  to  be  held  up  till 
every  Slave- State,  new  and  old,  has  been  wiped 
out  and  made  over  into  a  Free-State.  But  just 
now  what  a  trouble  in  getting  Kansas  free,  that 
small  first  link  in  the  great  chain  of  the  total 
War ! 

Another  result  of  the  Sack  of  Lawrence  may 
be  here  noted.  John  Brown  has  already  been 
observed  making  a  protest  against  the  Wake- 
rusa  peace.  Deeming  himself  the  divine  instru 
ment  of  vengeance,  he  has  gone  forth  to  begin 
his  own  war  against  slavery.  According  to 
Brown's  reckoning  five  Free-State  men  had 
been  murdered  in  his  locality;  God's  justice  de 
mands  five  victims  of  the  opposite  party.  The 
result  is  the  Pottawatomie  massacre  of  five 
Slave-State  men  at  the  hands  of  Brown  and  his 


PART  I.—  THE  THIRD  INVASION.  91 

confederates.  Such  was  the  bloody  deed  of  per 
sonal  retaliation  begotten  and  nursed  by  these 
Missouri  invasions  in  the  half-crazed  soul  of  a 
religious  fanatic,  the  sanguinary  prelude  of 
John  Brown's  coming  drama. 

Only  too  plain  is  the  fact  that  the  Furies  of  the 
godless  Deed  are  now  born  on  the  Kansas-Mis 
souri  border,  rearing  and  hissing  in  vengeful 
wrath  which  is  involving  the  innocent  with  the 
wrong-doer  in  a  common  fate.  Ancient  Aes 
chylus,  evoking  his  dreadful  Erinyes  from,  the 
abysses  of  the  guilty  soul,  would  himself  stand 
aghast  at  the  spectacle  of  retribution  now  enact 
ing  and  still  more  bloodily  to  be  enacted  in  this 
Ten  Years'  War.  Already  over  the  Sack  of 
Lawrence  every  eye  can  see  the  face  of  Nemesis 
with  a  dark  frown  of  vengeance  turned  toward 
the  source  of  this  deed  of  wrong  and  getting 
ready  to  pursue  its  perpetrators  to  their  own 
hearthstones,  which  will  be  reddened  by  the 
heart-drops  of  the  just  and  the  unjust  in  that 
day  of  wrathful  requital. 

But  now  we  may  well  divert  our  look  else 
whither.  Overlapping  these  Kansas  events  a 
Presidential  year  has  arrived,  giving  very  dis 
tinctly  a  new  turn  to  affairs,  through  the  elec 
tion  of  a  new  Chief  Magistrate  by  the  People. 
This  furnishes  a  fresh  opportunity  for  observing 
the  throbbing  occurrences  of  another  annual 
cycle,  and  for  seeking  to  find  their  historic 
process. 


CHAPTER  II.    THE  PRESIDENTIAL  YEAR. 

(1856-7.) 

The  Kansas  War  has  lasted  hardly  more  than 
a  year,  but  it  has  ushered  in  a  new  era.  It  has 
brought  home  to  the  American  Folk-Soul  the 
supreme  question  of  the  time,  which  must  be 
settled  before  anything  else  can  be  seriously 
thought  of.  The  old  Union,  half  slave  and  half 
free,  is  to  be  voted  on  by  the  entire  Nation,  con 
sciously  for  the  first  time.  Is  it  ready?  Does  it 
hear  with  distinctness  the  behest  of  the  World- 
Spirit?  Or  must  there  be  longer  waiting  and 
more  discipline?  This  is  the  issue  which  we 
may  now  watch  winding  through  the  political 
events  of  the  present  year  and  catch  the  answer 
in  the  outcome.  More  particularly  we  may  ask, 
Is  Kansas  to  get  relief,  or  is  there  to  be  more 
torture?  Her  animated  longitudinal  farm- wall, 

O 

embanked  against  the  Missouri  line,  is  still  held 
and  guarded  with  vigilance  and  valor. 
(92) 


PAET  I.  —  THE  PRESIDENTIAL   YEAR.         03 

But  is  this  Border  War  to  continue?  Let 
us  hear  the  response  of  the  American  electorate 
which  has  now  the  cause  before  its  tribunal 
for  decision. 

In  1856,  an  election  for  President  was  to  take 
place,  which  event  would  determine  whether  the 
central  authority  of  the  Federal  Union  was  to 
favor  the  creation  of  the  Free-State  or  of  the 
Slave-State  out  of  Kansas  specially,  and  out  of 
all  the  Territories  generally.  The  principle  of 
the  single  conflict  on  the  border  with  its  two 
sides  was  rapidly  making  itself  universal,  involv 
ing  all  the  States  and  dividing  them  into 
Northern  and  Southern  by  a  line,  or  rather  by  a 
chasm  growing  deeper  and  deeper,  which  ran 
from  Kansas  to  the  Atlantic.  The  line  existed 
before,  even  from  the  adoption  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  but  now  it  has  become  a  foreshadowed 
battle  line  along  which  the  contending  forces  may 
be  seen  in  the  mind's  eye  to  be  gathering  for  the 
onset. 

The  occurrences  of  this  year  are  somewhat  com 
plicated,  for  the  whole  country  is  seething  and 
struggling  with  its  problem,  which  is  perpetually 
shifting  about  and  taking  unexpected  shapes. 
How  can  we  catch  and  fix  the  underlying  move 
ment  of  all  this  hurly-burly?  Undoubtedly  the 
Presidency  is  the  central  determining  point  round 
which  everything  turns.  Hitherto  in  the  Kansas 
conflict  we  have  had  mainly  to  fix  our  eye  upon 


94  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

two  leading  elements:  the  government  at  Wash 
ington  and  the  strife  on  the  border,  the  one  being 
at  the  center  and  the  other  on  the  circumference. 
But  now  the  whole  area  of  the  country  lying 
between  center  and  circumference  has  the  stress, 
and  is  swept  into  the  whirl  of  the  conflict  by 
having  to  elect  a  President.  So  we  must  take 
into  account  three  main  elements  each  of  which 
has  its  own  movement,  while  they  all  unite  in 
forming  one  great  movement  characteristic  of  the 
Presidential  year. 

The  most  significant  and  lasting  event  of  the 
present  fermentation  is  that  a  new  party  is  shap 
ing  itself  out  of  the  ruins  of  previous  parties, 
such  as  the  Whig  and  Know-Nothing,  with  many 
a  boulder  breaking  off  and  floating  in  from  the 
still  living  and  lively  Democratic  party.  On  the 
22nd  of  February  a  convention  containing  dele 
gates  from  twenty-three  States  assembled  at  Pitts- 
burg  and  demanded  in  their  resolutions  "  the 
repeal  of  all  laws  which  allow  the  introduction  of 
slavery  into  the  territories  once  consecrated  to 
freedom,  and  furthermore  we  demand  the  imme 
diate  admission  of  Kansas  as  a  free  and  indepen 
dent  State."  Very  distinctly  is  now  the  Republi 
can  party  born  and  endowed  with  a  national  ac 
tivity,  being  called  upon  to  send  delegates  later 
(June  17th)  to  Philadelphia  for  nominating  a 
candidate  for  the  Presidency.  This  party  has  al 
ready  given  many  a  sign  of  itself  sporadically, 


PARTI.  —  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  YEAR.         05 

so  that  its  origin  is  variously  timed  and  located. 
At  Pittsburg,  however,  it  leaps  into  the  arena 
fully  panoplied  with  its  principles.  It  has  a 
great  destiny  before  it,  probably  greater  than 
that  of  any  other  political  party,  since  it  is  to 
fight  the  battle  for  the  Union  and  win  it,  and  to 
destroy  slavery  not  only  in  Kansas  but  in  every 
other  State  of  the  Union,  new  and  old,  giving  it 
a  mortal  blow  in  both  the  Americas  and  seem- 
inglv  for  all  futurity.  Quite  unconscious  of  any 
such  far-extending  destiny  at  present,  it  will 
simply  insist  upon  the  Federal  Union  being 
hereafter  the  mother  of  Free-States  only,  with 
out  disturbing  slavery  where  it  already  exists. 
And  after  fifty  stormy  years  this  party  still  lives 
and  works  with  its  hand  upon  the  helm  of  State, 
grappling  with  vast  new  problems  and  duties. 
Even  its  enemies  will  hardly  fail  to  look  upon  it 
with  some  degree  of  admiration,  wondering 
what  has  given  to  it  such  a  perdurable  vitality 
and  governing  power. 

The  three  elements  already  mentioned  —  Wash 
ington  (the  center),  Kansas  (the  border),  and  the 
entire  Country  lying  between  center  and  bor 
der —  are  in  a  process  together,  in  a  perpetual 
whirl  of  agitation.  The  irritating  cause  has  its 
seat  in  Washington,  being  the  Administration 
of  President  Pierce,  which  not  only  supports 
but  secretly  encourages  the  invasion  of  the  Mis- 
sourians  in  the  interest  of  slavery .  Then  Kan- 


9C>  THE   TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

sas  being  struck,  wronged,  violated  in  its  teu- 
clerest  part,  would  give  one  of  her  piercing 
shrieks,  which,  being  re-echoed  and  redupli 
cated  tenfold  from  that  line  of  sounding- 
boards  great  and  small,  the  newspaper  press 
with  its  reverberator  in  every  village  of  the 
North,  would  send  a  thrill  of  sympathetic  horror 
through  all  hearts  from  East  to  West.  Thus 
the  round  kept  going,  wave  after  wave,  till  the 
whole  People  were  brought  to  share  in  the 
Kansas-pain  and  began  to  cry  out  for  relief, 
which  they  did  not  and  could  not  get.  For 
these  Free-State  men,  as  already  observed,  had  a 
voice  which  bore  their  wrongs  and  sufferings  on 
the  wind,  and  repeated  them  in  every  hamlet. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  the  people  of  the  North, 
tortured  with  their  own  sympathy  and  shocked 
in  their  feeling  of  right,  began  to  propound  the 
question:  Can  we  not  transform  that  Washing 
ton  center  of  perpetual  irritation,  and  let  these 
Kansas  people  finish  in  peace  building  their 
State?  More  pressing  does  the  question 
become,  since  the  Presidential  year  has  arrived, 
and  the  Convention  for  nominating  the  candidate 
.draws  near.  Such  is,  then,  the  task  of  the 
time :  to  get  possession  of  the  source  of  the 
trouble  and  to  make  it  over,  if  possible,  into  a 
fountain  of  healing. 

O 

The  nominating  Conventions  of  the  two 
parties  may  be  regarded  as  the  culmination  of 


PAUTl.—  THE  PRESIDENTIAL   YEAR.         97 

the  year.  Hence  we  t-hall  first  look  at  the  swirl 
of  events  leading  up  to  them,  and  then  following 
after  them  till  the  election  is  over.  In  other 
words  the  events  of  the  year  move  in  two  main 
processes  separated  by  the  Conventions.  Thus 
we  see  each  side  first  putting  itself  into  trim  for 
the  contest,  and  then  the  contest  between  the 
two  sides.  When  this  is  over,  we  may  well  take 
a  look  backward  and  also  forward,  to  see  if  wre 
can  measure  the  work  which  the  Genius  of 
History  has  accomplished. 


98  THE  TEN  TEAKS'    WAlt. 


mominations* 

It  had  become  the  conviction  of  the  North 
that  the  Washington  Administration  was  the 
generating  cause  of  the  disorders  in  Kansas, 
inasmuch  as  this  was  determined  not  to  be  a 
Slave-State.  Hence  arose  the  movement  of  the 
Northern  people  to  reach  the  seat  of  the  malady 
by  changing  the  central  Administration,  for 
which  the  opportunity  is  now  at  hand.  But  there 
was  also  the  counter  movement  of  those  in  power 
for  keeping  their  grasp  on  the  government. 
Thus  the  two  Parties,  Republican  and  Demo 
cratic,  begin  their  preliminary  maneuvers  for 
the  coming  appeal  to  the  final  tribunal  of  the 
land,  the  People. 

Amid  all  sorts  of  eddies,  currents  and  counter- 
currents,  the  one  fundamental  historic  movement 
can  again  be  seen  embracing  all  the  diversities 
of  the  turbulent  stream  of  events.  We  shall  still 
follow  the  round  which  starts  from  Washington, 
passes  to  Kansas,  then  returns  upon  the  People. 

Both  parties  began  to  show  certain  changes  of 
conduct  in  anticipation  of  the  approaching  con 
test  before  the  People.  Particularly  among 
the  Democratic  leaders  a  new  adjustment  was 
noticeable.  Pierce  was  a  candidate  for  re-elec 
tion.  As  he  had  favored  the  South,  he  looked 


PART  I.  — PRESIDENTIAL  DOMINATIONS        9'9 

to  that  section  for  his  chief  support  in  the 
approaching  Convention.  Still  the  South  alone 
could  not  nominate  him,  so  he  had  to  conciliate 
a  part  of  the  North  also.  Another  candidate 
was  Douglas  who  had  made  his  great  bid  for 
Southern  support  in  his  Kansas-Nebraska  bill 
repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which,  how 
ever,  had  lost  the  North  to  the  Democratic  Party 
in  the  Congressional  election.  The  hostile  House 
of  Representatives  was  already  in  session  at  the 
beginning  of  1856  and  was  balloting  for  Speaker. 
Banks,  a  Republican,  was  finally  elected,  and  a 
new  source  of  antagonism  had  to  be  reckoned 
with  by -the  Administration. 

The  first  round  of  events  we  shall  summarize 
as  follows :  — 

1.  Washington.  The  President  in  his  com 
munication  to  Congress  takes  the  Southern  side 
in  reference  to  slavery  generally,  and  in  reference 
to  Kansas  specially.  He  blames  the  Emigrant 
Aid  Societies  for  the  troubles  on  the  border, 
though  he  faintly  censures  "the  illegal  and 
reprehensible  counter-movements"  of  the  Mis- 
sourians.  But  when  he  comes  to  the  main  issue, 
he  asserts  the  legality  of  the  Territorial  Legisla 
ture,  as  its  members  had  Reeder's  certificates  of 
election,  while  the  Topeka  Constitutional  Con 
vention  was  wholly  without  the  warrant  of  law. 
And  yet  the  former  was  a  fraud,  and  the  latter 
was  an  expression  of  the  will  of  the  People. 


100  THE  TEN  YE AKS'   WAE. 

Thus  the  President  in  the  interest  of  slavery 
turns  the  formal  law  against  right  and  uses 
established  authority  to  destroy  its  own  original 
fountain-head.  Douglas  took  substantially  the 
same  position,  assailing  the  Emigrant  Aid  Society, 
and  championing  the  side  of  legality  against 
equity,  of  a  wrong  which  was  formally  legal 
against  a  ri^ht  which  was  formally  illegal. 

no  •/  o 

Surely  it  is  the  duty  of  the  legislator  to  reconcile 
such  a  contradiction  when  it  has  arisen. 

As  a  new  party  was  appearing  and  organizing 
itself,  many  speeches  were  made  at  this  time, 
which  was  felt  to  be  epoch-making.  Particu 
larly  the  Republican  Senators  gave  expression  to 
the  dawning  idea  and  its  conflict  in  well-phrased 
turns  which  were  printed  in  the  great  journals 
of  the  North  and  distributed  far  and  wide.  This 
expression  was  the  counterpart  to  that  of  Kan 
sas  with  its  cry  of  pain,  appealing  more  to  the 
reason  than  to  the  emotions.  The  formulation 
of  the  Republican  creed  was  completed  and  made 
universal  in  the  doctrine  that  in  all  the  Terri 
tories  Congress  is  to  prohibit  slavery.  It  was  a 
great  service  and  prepared  the  minds  of  the 
people  for  the  coming  platform  of  the  Republi 
can  Convention.  Still  this  universal  doctrine 
would  hardly  have  found  such  a  strong  response 
in  the  hearts  of  the  People,  unless  a  particular 
and  soul-harrowing  illustration  of  it  had  been 
brought  daily  before  their  eyes  through  Kansas. 


PA  A' T  L  —  PRE  SID  EN  TIAL  NOMINA  TIONS.      1 0 1 

The  most  famous  of  all  these  speeches  was 
that  of  Sumner  entitled  the  *«  Crime  against 
Kansas."  It  was  a  furious,  at  times  frenzied 
tirade,  though  carefully  written  out  beforehand 
and  committed  to  memory.  Most  readers  to 
day  will  condemn  both  its  spirit  and  style;  it  is 
the -work  of  a  rhetor  rather  than  of  an  orator, 
and  sounds  more  like  a  rhetorical  exercise  of  the 
later  Greco-Roman  schools  than  a  Demosthenic 
philippic.  But  wonderful  was  its  power  over 
young  heads;  in  this  field  lay  its  influence  which 
its  very  extravagance  increased.  But  its  chief 
fame  springs  from  the  fact  that  it  provoked  the 
brutal  assault  of  Brooks,  a  Representative  from 
South  Carolina,  who  thus  made  himself  the 
counterpart  of  the  Missouri  border-ruffian  at 
Washington.  The  parallel  to  Kansas  came 
home  mightily  to  all,  and  was  recognized  at  once 
both  in  the  North  and  South,  in  the  one  case  for 
reprobation,  in  the  other  for  glorification..  The 
Missouri  border  was  transferred  to  Washington, 
to  the  very  Capitol,  and  the  armed  Southerner 
smote  the  unarmed  though  stronger  Northerner, 
as  the  latter  sat  at  his  desk  occupied  in  writing. 
Moreover  there  was  the  same  alignment  of  the 
sections,  the  North  taking  sides  with  the  stricken 
man,  and  the  South  on  the  whole  approving  and 
making  the  act  its  own.  Of  course  that  huge 
sounding-board  was  again  set  in  operation,  and 
the  whole  North  *«  from  the  ice-bound  coast  of 


102  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

Maine  to  the  golden  gate  of  California  "  was 
made  to  shiver  in  sympathetic  throes  begetting 
horror  and  anger  and  the  deeper  passion  of 
revenge. 

Already  we  have  spoken  of  the  means  of  inter 
communication  extending  through  all  parts  of 
the  North  and  constituting  a  very  important 
element  in  its  present  political  process.  Without 
the  railroads  rapidly  bringing  succor  to  Kansas, 
without  the  telegraph  disseminating  its  news 
over  the  land  in  a  day,  without  the  press  car 
rying  the  words  of  the  leaders  to  the  millions, 
there  could  have  been  no  successful  conflict 
for  a  Free-State  along  the  Missouri  border.  The 
instrumentalities  of  Civilization  fought  for  Civil 
ization.  The  South  had  not  developed  them, 
and  could  not  develop  them  in  a  high  degree. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  railroad,  the 
telegraph  and  the  printing  press  enlisted  as  sol 
diers  and  fought  on  the  side  of  free  Kansas, 
giving  her  at  last  the  victory.  They  had  already 
uniticd  the  North  years  before  the  first  shot  fired 
at  Sumter.  Through  them  the  most  distant 
Northern  States  were  closely  bound  together. 
Space  could  not  separate  where  Time  was  so 
nearly  obliterated. 

The  Presidential  campaign  of  1856  pushed 
i/.ese  means  of  intercommunication  to  the 
1  ghest  intensity  then  possible;  especially  did  it 
c  all  forth  the  powers  of  the  printed  word  in 


PAR  TI.  —  TR E  SID ENTIA L  NOMINA  TIONS.      1 03 

book,  magazine,  but  above  all,  in  the  newspaper. 
Though  the  storehouse  of  imagery  be  ransacked, 
we  seek  in  vain  to  catch  an  adequate  illustration 
for  this  peculiar  influence.  We  may  go  back  to 
the  Homeric  Gods  and  call  up  Mars  who,  when 
hit  and  wounded  before  Troy,  utters  a  cry  like 
that  of  nine  or  ten  thousand  men  —  a  divine  meg 
aphone.  Or  let  us  think  of  Mercury  fleeting  over 
sea  and  land  with  the  message  of  the  Gods — 
the  Olympian  telegraph,  or  perchance  the  tele 
phone  wrhich  is  to  come  after  the  war.  Or  pass 
ing  from  classic  to  more  homely  comparisons,  let 
us  conceive  the  newspaper  press  along  the  North- 
Atlantic  coast  as  an  enormous  fog-horn  or  per 
chance  sounding-board  throwing  back  upon  the 
People  and  intensifying  the  deeds  of  wrong 
and  the  cries  of  agony  transmitted  to  it  from 
Washington  and  Kansas.  Such  is  the  process  of 
reaching  and  stirring  the  Folk-Soul  in  its  depths 
through  these  most  modern  instrumentalities, 
which  have  the  power  of  associating  men  living  a 
thousand  miles  apart,  as  if  they  dwelt  in  the  limits 
of  a  single  city,  and  listened  within  the  range  of 
the  voice  of  their  leader. 

Of  all  these  far-sounding  fog-horns  the  greatest 
and  the  loudest  at  this  time  was  Greeley's  Repub 
lican  Tribune,  set  up  in  New  York  City.  It  had 
a  prodigious  circulation  throughout  the  Northern 
States,  and  became  a  kind  of  oracle  which  the 
farmer  and  the  villager  would  consult  every 


104  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

week  with  longing  expectation  and  with  implicit 
faith.  The  whole  family  would  read  it,  husband, 
wife,  and  children,  with  many  an  interjection  of 
joy  or  wrath ;  then  it  would  be  passed  to  the 
neighbor  who  would  subject  it  to  the  same 
process.  Particularly  would  it  be  sent  to  the 
Democratic  neighbor,  being  used  as  the  vehicle 
for  missionary  work  in  his  case.  While  it 
might  not  make  him  a  Eepublican,  it  would  lead 
him  to  question  the  doings  of  his  party  in 
Kansas.  When  the  breach  came,  he  was  ready 
to  side  with  Douglas  against  the  Administration. 
Greeley  was  at  this  time  in  the  meridian  of  his 
powers  and  of  his  usefulness.  He  probably 
addressed  every  week  half  a  million  of  readers, 
each  of  whom  in  most  cases  became  a  little 
center  of  propagation.  His  style,  his  mental 
horizon,  and  his  political  attitude  were  just 
suited  to  the  time  and  his  audience.  Then  he 
gave  the  key-note  to  the  thousand  smaller  news 
papers,  which  echoed  and  re-echoed  his  thoughts 
and  his  words,  till  they  reached  the  remotest 
nooks  of  the  North.  The  shops,  the  stores,  the 
street  corners  of  every  village  became  the  arena 
of  local  disputants  who  would  engage  in  a 
political  tussle  before  an  interested  crowd  of 
spectators. 

The  South  had  for  the  most  part  no  such 
<>  -rans  and  no  such  system  of  reverberators. 
Tnc  South  did  not  read  as  a  people,  could  not. 


PAR  T  I.  —  rBESIDEN  TIAL  NOMINA  TLONS.      1 05 

Education  of  the  white  masses  was  neglected  and 
of  the  black  masses  was  not  permitted.  Of 
course  there  were  many  highly  educated  men 
and  women  in  the  South.  But  the  modern 
training  of  the  Folk-Soul  through  the  printed 
page  was  not  theirs  to  any  great  extent;  the 
People  still  got  their  political  information  orally, 
or  did  without  it.  Such  was  their  backward 
condition  in  this  respect;  they  depended  on  the 
spoken  word  and  the  momentary  impression  given 
to  it  by  the  personality  of  the  speaker.  They 
were  not  disciplined  to  read  in  their  privacy  the 
cold  type,  and  weigh  the  significance  of  what  was 
thus  imparted ;  they  were  exposed  to  the  passions 
excited  by  the  flaming  orator  without  the  cor 
rective  which  conies  from  the  silent  perusal  of 
his  statements.  Hence  there  is  during  this 
period  a  passionateness  in  word  and  act,  a 
thoughtless  impulsiveness,  a  headstrong  violence 
which  could  not  have  come  upon  a  nation  of 
readers.  They  would  hear  but  one  side  on  the 
slavery  question,  and  that  was  their  own.  For 
this  reason  many  have  held  and  still  hold  that 
the  South  was  dragged  ignorantly  into  a  conflict 
by  their  leaders,  who  used  them  as  means  for 
ambition. 

The  assault  on  Sumner  by  Brooks  introduced 
a  kind  of  Border  War  into  both  Houses  of  Con 
gress,  of  which  the  Senate  was  Democratic  and 
Southern,  and  the  House  of  Representatives  Re- 


106  THE  TEN  YEAE&   WAR. 

publican  and  Northern,  in  majority.  The  Kansas 
subterfuge  again  was  made  to  do  work.  The 
Southerners  in  both  Houses  through  the  reports 
of  their  Committees  pleaded  a  want  of  jurisdic 
tion,  and  supported  their  views  with  legal  techni 
calities.  Legality  was  put  into  the  saddle  and  was 
forced  to  override  justice.  Right  is  illegal  or  at 
least  powerless,  while  wrong  is  legal,  or  at  least 
powerful.  Such  seems  now  to  be  the  method, 
or  indeed  the  very  consciousness  of  the  South. 

The  House  of  Representatives  gave  a  majority, 
but  not  the  requisite  two-thirds,  for  the  expul 
sion  of  Brooks.  lie  resigned,  went  home,  and 
was  immediately  re-elected  by  his  South  Carolina 
district,  six  votes  only  being  recorded  against 
him.  But  in  eight  months  after  his  assault  he 
was  dead ;  in  a  little  over  four  months  more, 
his  uncle,  Senator  Butler,  in  vindication  of 
whose  honor  he  had  made  the  assault,  passed 
away.  Meanwhile  Simmer  was  slowly  recover 
ing.  The  New  England  religious  world  saw  in 
these  events  the  hand  of  God ;  from  them  many 
a  minister  took  his  text  for  a  discourse  concern 
ing  Divine  Judgment  wreaked  upon  the  enemies 
of  the  Lord's  chosen  people. 

The  assault  of  Brooks  made  Sunnier  a  greater 
man  than  he  ever  was  before  or  afterwards.  It 
made  him  the  hero  of  the  hour;  it  reflected  the 
action  of  the  South  in  Kansas  far  more  effectively 
than  his  speech,  which  was  full  of  bitter  taunts 


PAR T I  —  PRESIDENTIAL  NOmXA TIOXS.      107 

and  personalities  repugnant  to  many  a  reader  on 
his  side.  Stunner  gives  the  impression  of  an 
athlete  physically  and  mentally,  vain  of  his 
prowess,  with  his  nostrils  distended,  his  hair 
thrown  back,  his  herculean  frame  assuming  the 
gladiatorial  attitude.  He  was  intrinsically  a 
negttive,  critical  spirit,  not  a  builder,  not  a 
statesman,  hardly  institutional  enough  to  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Later  in  his  nagging  and  carp- 
ino-  at  Lincoln  the  true  character  of  the  man 

o 

appears  as  capable  of  little  more  than  negations. 
A  kind  of  Roman  rhetorical  athlete  set  down 
upon  American  soil  in  a  time  needing  construc 
tive  power,  he  showed  almost  no  response  to  a 
vast  opportunity  for  State-building.  That  he 
receives  conspicuous  mention  in  History  to-day, 
he  largely  owes  to  the  cane  of  Brooks,  who  beat 
him  most  cruelly  and  outrageously  into  a  mo 
mentary  world-historical  prominence. 

2.  Kansas.  Passing  from  the  center  to  the 
border,  we  find  that  the  year  1856  produced  a 
more  plentiful  crop  of  violence  and  irritation 
than  ever.  It  was  the  time  of  the  Third  Inva 
sion,  already  described.  The  Judiciary  was  now 
dragged  into  the  conflict  and  the  Federal  judge, 
Lecompte,  declared  the  Free-State  leaders,  Rob- 
inson,  Reeder,  and  Lane  to  be  guilty  of  treason 
against  the  United  States.  This  stroke  was 
intended  to  deprive  the  Free-State  men  of  guid- 


108  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

ance,  and  undo  their  work  through  the  aid  of 
national  troops.  The  outcome  has  been  already 
seen  in  the  famous  Sack  of  Lawrence  by  the  pro- 
slavery  borderers  acting  under  the  color  of  law. 
This  took  place  May  21st,  and  soon  the  new* 
started  fresh  pulsations  of  horror  and  wrath 
through  the  North.  The  result  was  a  renewed 
determination  to  send  men  and  money  to  Kansas. 

More  emigrants  began  to  pour  in,  coming 
down  through  Iowa  when  their  passage  through 
Missouri  was  stopped.  From  the  East  men 
came  in  colonies,  such  as  were  seen  in  the 
early  settlement  of  New  England;  from  the 
West  they  emigrated  mostly  as  individuals,  rely 
ing  on  their  own  personal  will  to  meet  any 
emergency.  The  South  likewise  sent  some 
settlers,  but  they  were  few  in  comparison.  For 
what  slaveholder  would  take  his  slaves  into  a 
place  where  they  were  likely  to  be  lost?  Yet 
what  is  slavery  without  slaves?  A  Southern 
leader,  our  notable  Striugfellow,  called  fran 
tically  for  2,000  slaves,  yet,  it  is  said, not  200  ever 
entered  the  Territory.  It  was  then  left  to  the 
poor  white  man  of  the  South  to  light  a  battle 
not  his  own.  Many  of  them  refused  when  they 
saw  the  situation,  and  became  Free-State  men, 
not  from  love,  but  rather  from  hate  of  the  poor 
darkey,  who  was  to  be  wholly  excluded  from  this 
paradisaical  white  man's  land. 

But  after  the  Sack  of    Lawrence    a    new  and 


P A  7?  T  I  —  PRESIDE  V  77. 1 L  X O J/7.V. 1  TV  0  .VS.     100 

more  dreadful  element  begins  to  weave  itself 
into  the  already  complicated  tangle  of  Kansas 
troubles.  This  was  personal  retaliation  which 
appeared  with  all  its  horror  in  what  is  known  as 
the  Pottawatomie  massacre  by  John  Brown  (see 
preceding  p.  90)  On  May  24th  five  pro-slavery 
men  were  taken  from  their  cabins  in  the  night 
and  murdered.  It  is  now  known,  though  it  was 
for  a  long  time  denied,  that  this  was  the  work 
of  Brown,  who  through  his  border  experience 
is  getting  ready  for  his  national  attempt  at  Har 
per's  Ferry.  Thus  Kansas  seems  in  this  period 
to  be  germinal  in  everything,  to  be  the  par 
ticular  which  is  to  make  itself  universal  every 
where  in  the  Nation. 

As  far  as  bloodshed  was  concerned,  the  Pot 
tawatomie  butchery  far  surpassed  the  Sack  of 
Lawrence,  where  only  one  person  was  accident 
ally  killed  by  a  brick  falling  from  the  Free- 
State  Hotel,  and  he  was  a  pro-slavery  man. 
But  what  a  difference  in  the  fame  of  the  two 
events  at  the  time !  It  is  true  that  there  rose 
in  turn  the  cry  of  pain  from  the  pro-slavery 
settlers,  many  of  whom  started  back  to  the 
Missouri  line  in  a  hurry.  But  these  people 
had  no  voice  echoing  through  their  own  land 
in  fearful  reduplicated  tones;  the  South  pos 
sessed  no  fog-horn  on  the  Atlantic,  only  at 
most  a  little  tin  horn  in  comparison,  which 
had  small  power  of  reverberation.  It  must 


110  THE   TEN  YKAlitf    }VAlt. 

be  confessed  too  that  the  Northern  fog-horn 
wtis  arranged  solely  for  catching  up  and  echo 
ing  the  Free-State  shriek  of  Kansas ;  it  had  no 
organ,  yea  no  heart  for  throbbing  in  response 
to  the  pro-slavery  shout  of  pain.  Even  the  Ee- 
publican  members  of  the  Congressional  Inves 
tigating  Committee,  Howard  and  Sherman, 
refused  on  a  technicality  to  investigate  the  Pot- 
tawatornie  Massacre,  though  they  made  a  very 
voluminous  report  on  the  outrages  of  the  Border 
Ruffians.  So  Congressman  Oliver,  the  pro-slav 
ery  member  of  the  Committee,  investigates  on 
his  own  account  and  submits  a  minority  report, 
which,  however,  quite  lacked  the  power  of 
awakening  any  resonance  from  the  press,  though 
it  is  now  recognized  to  be  full  of  important  facts 
about  the  awful  butchery.  For  the  huge  North 
ern  fog-horn  is  so  cunningly  adjusted  that  only 
Free-State  wind  can  make  a  noise  through  it, 
while  the  sighs  and  groans  of  the  other  side 
seem  to  be  swallowed  up  in  the  mighty  rever 
berations  of  the  Sack  of  Lawrence,  or  produce 
merely  some  faint  flurry  of  inarticulate  air 
waves. 

Already  we  have  seen  Brown  in  a  protest 
against  the  peace  made  in  the  Wakerusa  affair. 
Through  the  study  of  the  Old  Testament  he  had 
become  thoroughly  Semitized  in  mind  after  the 
ancient  Hebrew  pattern;  even  his  face  seemed 
to  be  of  a  Semitic  cut.  With  that  long  beard 


PART  7.  —  PRESIDENTIAL  NOMINATION'S.     1  1  1 

of  his  and  lowering  features,  telling  the  prophet's 
world-pain,  his  picture  reminds  us  of  Michel 
Angelo's  Jeremiah. 

But  now  we  must  pass  from  these  scenes  of 
violence  and  blood  on  the  border  to  the  People 
as  a  whole,  and  see  what  effect  Kansas  has  pro 
duced  upon  them.  In  two  Conventions  they 
meet,  divided  according  to  party,  and  give  ex 
pression  to  their  views  in  two  political  platforms, 
as  well  as  in  two  nominations  for  the  Presidency. 
Kansas  is  really  the  subject-matter  of  both  Con 
ventions,  though  looked  at  from  diverse  points 
of  view.  We  observe  that  the  rent  on  the  bor 
der  between  Kansas  and  Missouri  has  extended 
through  the  whole  Union  and  divided  it  into  two 
political  parties,  which  are  now  to  declare  their 
principles  and  test  their  strength  against  each 
other  by  the  peaceful  ballot.  Clear  it  is  that 
Kansas  has  nationalized  its  conflict  in  a  year. 

3.  The  Two  Conventions.  The  Democratic 
Convention  for  nominating  a  Presidential  candi 
date  assembled  at  Cincinnati  June  2nd.  The 
delegates  had  been  chosen  and  many  of  them 
were  on  their  way  when  a  double  blast,  one  out 
of  the  East  and  one  out  of  the  West,  met  their 
ears,  with  a  detonation  which  must  have  shaken 
them  to  the  center.  Within  a  fortnight  before 
the  Convention,  Sumner  had  been  assaulted  and 
Lawrence  had  been  sacked.  The  Republican 
newspaper  press  of  the  North  was  making  the 


112  THE  TEN  YEAES*   WAR. 

air  resound  with  maledictions  upon  the  Adminis 
tration  and  its  haughty  Southern  dictators,  and 
particularly  its  truckling  Northern  Democratic- 
supporters.  It  was  clear  from  the  start  that  no 
man  from  the  South  could  be  thought  of  for  the 
Presidency;  indeed,  the  Southerners  had  fwr 
years  given  up  that  ambition.  Taylor  was  their 
last,  and  he  rather  turned  away  from  their 
extreme  views.  Their  present  policy  was  to  find 
a  Northerner  who  would  do  their  bidding.  Two 
such  men  they  had  now  had,  Fillmore  and  Pierce. 
Fill  more  had  completely  undone  himself  in  his 
own  section,  and  was  cast  aside;  the  same  fate 
was  evidently  hanging  over  Pierce.  Douglas 
also  had  lost  the  grand  prize  of  his  life  through 
his  part  in  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise,  which  was  the  beginning  of  all  the  Kansas 
woes.  Both  these  Northerners,  Pierce  and 
Douglas,  had  been  running  a  race  for  Southern 
support  as  the  chief  political  boon.  Meanwhile 
both  of  th'em  lost  the  support  of  their  own  sec 
tion,  which  was  necessary  for  an  election.  Hence 
the  South,  for  which  they  had  sacrificed  so  much, 
threw  both  of  them  overboard  at  Cincinnati. 
For  the  Southerners  knew  that  the  Northern 
man  who  had  shown  himself  most  devoted  to  their 
cause,  was  justthe  person  whom  they  must  reject. 
They  had  to  punish  their  best  friends  for  such 
friendship,  to  scourge  devotees  with  the  keenest 
agony  for  being  devoted.  They  were  and  had  to 


PAR  T  I.  —  PBESID  EN  TTA  L  NOM1NA  TIONS.     1 1 3 

be  the  very  instrument  of  retribution  upon  their 
own  followers.  They  could  not  help  playing  the 
part  of  Satan  in  the  Universe,  who  first  tempts 
the  sinner,  and  then  inflicts  upon  him  the  penalty 
of  sin. 

Pierce  and  Douglas,  being  human,  must  have 
had  some  such  reflections  as  the  foregoing,  and 
have  felt  the  dagger  of  their  own  deeds  turned 
back  upon  them  by  their  own  friends.  But 
both  suppress  their  emotions  and  accept  the 
situation.  Particularly  Pierce  as  a  harmless  sort 
of  a  man,  did  not  and  could  not  harbor  much 
retaliation,  yet  he  must  have  had  a  little,  per 
chance.  Certain  it  is  that  he  was,  after  the 
Convention,  not  so  vigorously  Southern  in  his 
policy  toward  Kansas,  though  this  was  also  dic 
tated  by  the  critical  situation  of  his  party  in  the 
coming  election.  But  how  is  it  with  Douglas, 
so  full  of  vitality,  and  so  pugnacious,  and  so 
capable?  He  is  now  well  aware  that  the  South 
will  never  take  him,  as  its  candidate,  perchance 
suspects  him  for  just  what  he  has  done  in  its 
favor.  One  may  well  predict  that,  if  the  oppor 
tunity  presents,  he  will  turn  upon  it  and  settle 
with  it  for  what  he  deems  in  his  heart  to  be 
its  treachery,  having  received  on  the  first  ballot 
in  the  Convention  only  fourteen  votes  from  the 
Slave-States. 

On  the  whole  the  Convention  adopted  a 
Douglas  platform  in  affirming  the  repeal  of  the 


114  THE   TEX  YEARS'    WAlt. 

Missouri  Compromise,  and  the  non-interference 
of  Congress  in  the  territories.  But  had  it  ac 
cepted  at  the  same  time,  the  doctrine  of  squat 
ter  sovereignty?  To  this  question  two  answers 
could  be  construed,  and  out  of  this  dualism 
is  to  unfold  the  party  conflict  of  the  future. 
The  pivotal  clause  runs:  "  Resolved,  that  we 
recognize  the  right  of  the  People  of  all  the  Ter 
ritories,  including  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  acting 
through  the  legally  and  fairly  expressed  will  of 
a  majority  of  actual  residents,  and  whenever  the 
number  of  their  inhabitants  justifies  it,  to  form 
a  Constitution  with  or  without  domestic  slavery, 
and  be  admitted  into  the  Union  upon  terms  of 
perfect  equality  with  the  other  States."  The 
obvious  meaning  of  this  clause  was  violated  by 
both  Pierce  and  Buchanan,  unless  the  Mis- 
souriaus  expressed  "the  will  of  a  majority  of 
actual  residents"  when  they  seized  the  legal 
machinery  of  the  Territory  by  violence.  Doug 
las  will  defend  the  usurpation  up  to  the  time  of 
the  Convention,  but  after  it  he  gets  new  light 
and  changes  his  mind.  The  clause  is  not,  when 
fairly  interpreted,  ambiguous,  still  out  of  it  grew 
or  continued  to  grow  the  Kansas  collision 
between  the  wrong  which  is  legal,  and  the  right 
which  is  illegal  —  the  one  side  appealing  to 
legality  (law  and  order),  the  other  side  to 
primal  justice. 

The   nominee  of    the    Democratic    Convention 


PART  I.  —  PRESIDENTIAL  XOMIXATIOXS.      1  15 

was  James  Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania,  which 
was  regarded  as  the  pivotal  State,  and  which 
had  never  before  furnished  a  President,  and  has 
never  since,  and  seemingly  will  not  soon  again. 
It  was  through  and  through  a  politic  nomina 
tion  of  a  politician  who  had  made  many  an  old 
Quaker  of  William  Perm's  State  believe  that  he 
was  a  Free-Soiler,  and  yet  he  had  signed  the 
Ostend  manifesto  in  the  interest  of  extending  the 
slave-power  to  Cuba.  He  had  been  out  of 
the  country  during  the  Kansas-Nebraska  excite 
ment,  as  Minister  to  England.  He  was  getting 
old,  but  had  ridden  so  dexterously  two  horses 
all  his  political  life  that  his  very  expertness  rec 
ommended  him  in  the  present  emergency  of 
his  )party.  It  was  rumored  in  the  North  that 
he  was  favorable  to  making  Kansas  a  Free- 

O 

State.  But  the  South  knew  their  man,  and 
took  care  to  know  that  they  knew  him.  In  the 
North  always  the  uncanny  question  kept  rising  : 
How  will  Buchanan,  if  elected,  carry  out  the 
platform,  especially  that  plank  so  deftly  mor 
ticed  together  of  two  such  different  sorts  of 
wood?  This  question,  however,  did  not  seem 
to  trouble  the  South  very  much,  its  security 
being  born  of  knowledge  and  buttressed  by 
pledges. 

A  fortnight  after  the  Democratic  Convention, 
came  the  turn  of  the  Republicans  to  nominate  a 
candidate  for  the  Presidency.  Who  shall  it  be? 


110  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

McLean  and  Chase  were  mentioned,  but  had  little 
chance  from  the  start.  But  how  about  Seward, 
the  acknowledged  leader  and  mouth-piece  of  the 
new  party,  on  the  whole  the  ablest  public  man  in 
it,  as  far  as  could  at  present  be  seen?  To  this 
day  Seward's  attitude  is  problematical;  it  seems 
that  he  hardly  knew  himself  whether  he  wanted 
the  nomination  or  not.  Of  course  he  would 
have  liked  to  be  President,  but  he  doubted 
whether  he  or  any  Republican  could  be  elected 
in  1856.  The  question  seems  to  have  taken  this 
shape  in  his  mind:  If  I  run  and  am  beaten  now, 
will  it  improve  or  injure  my  chances  in  1860, 
when  victory  appeal's  probable?  It  is  said  that 
the  influence  of  his  friend  and  chief  adviser, 
Thurlow  Weed,  determined  him  to  decline  the 
present  nomination  in  the  interest  of  the  future. 
At  anv  rate  Seward  lost  his  opportunity.  He 
refused  the  place  of  supreme  generalship  in  his 
party's  first  great  battle,  thinking  of  his  own 
success  more  than  of  the  cause.  It  was  a  test  of 
the  deepest  fiber  of  his  character,  and  could  not 
help  being  so  regarded  by  the  thinking  heads  of 
his  party.  He  abdicated  leadership  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  enemy,  when  the  importunate  call 
came  to  him  and  he  heard  it,  not  once  upon 
a  time  but  for  many  months.  Never  can  he  be 
President  now ;  the  nomination  will  never  come 
to  him  again,  begging;  when  he  wants  it,  he  can- 


PA  RT  L-  PRESIDENTIAL  NO  MIX  A  TIONS.      1 1 7 

not  get   it,   by  the   judgment  of  his  own  Deed 
confirmed  by  the  Gods. 

Who,  then,  shall  lead  us?  is  the  crushing 
question  of  that  half-dazed  Convention,  finding 
itself  leaderless  in  its  grand  emergency.  It 
casts  about,  groping  blindly  for  the  wanted  man, 
and  clutches  in  the  dark  yet  with  all  its  might  — 
an  adventurer.  For  such  a  term  is  not  too  harsh 
for  John  C.  Fremont,  when  we  consider  his 
career  and  character.  Can  mortal  sagacity 
fathom  the  reason  why  such  a  Convention  should 
choose  such  a  man,  the  most  unfit  ever  nomi 
nated  by  a  great  party  for  the  Presidency,  if  we 
consider  the  perilous  crisis  threatening  the  land 
at  that  time?  Yet  the  Convention  has  been  de 
clared  by  good  authority  to  have  contained  a 
greater  number  of  able,  pure,  conscientious  men, 
to  have  had  in  it  fewer  self-seekers  and  office- 
seekers  than  any  known  Convention  of  any  party 
before  or  since.  The  practical  politician  is  at 
hand  with  his  explanations  :  Too  many  idealists, 
theorists,  dreamers,  reformers,  Heaveu-and- 
Earth  regenerators ;  too  few  of  practical  men 
like  myself.  We  cannot  accept  this  as  an  expla 
nation  in  full  of  the  phenomenon ;  still  it  con 
tains  a  grain,  possibly  two  grains  of  truth.  But 
looking  back  through  fifty  years  we  quite  invol 
untarily  bend  the  knee  and  thank  the  Lord  for 
His  providential  mercy  when  we  consider  what 
might  or  rather  must  have  happened,  had  Fre- 


118  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

mont  been  elected  President  by  the  callow  Re 
publican  party,  which  showed  itself  then  such  a 
political  greenhorn,  so  totally  unable  to  govern 
the  country.  For  after  all,  it  is  the  successful 
Party  which  must  rule,  not  so  much  the  Presi 
dent. 


PART  I.—  THE  PRESIDENTIAL   CAMPAIGN.     119 


preei&ential  Campaign, 

Each  side  through  its  Convention  has  now  pre 
pared  itself  for  the  political  struggle  which  in 
volves  the  whole  People.  That  little  actual  war  on 
the  border  with  its  two  opposing  principles  has 
widened  out  into  a  national  contest,  as  yet  peace 
ful,  between  these  same  principles.  The  two  Par 
ties,  Eepublican  and  Democratic,  have  substan 
tially  taken  the  place  of  the  two  protagonists  of 
the  Kansas  combat,  the  Free-State  men  and  the 
Slave-State  men.  One  Party  supports  the  Kan- 
sans,  the  other  the  Administration  ;  thus  the  rent 
on  the  border  is  cleaving  the  whole  Nation.  As 
the  majority  is  supposed  to  rule,  each  Party  is 
seeking  to  win  that  majority  constitutionally, 
although  we  hear  again  menaces  of  secession 
from  the  South,  in  case  of  the  election  of 
Fremont. 

More  and  more  do  we  see  that  the  little  civil 
war  of  Kansas  was  the  prediction  and  indeed 
the  epitome  of  the  Great  Civil  War,  for  which 
the  alignment  is  already  taking  place  in  the  poli 
tical  campaign  of  1856.  Kansas  has  nationalized 
itself  in  one  year's  time,  and  bids  fair  to  univer 
salize  itself.  Its  sturdy  pioneers  are  holding  the 
advanced  fortress  of  civilization  with  the  valor  of 
the  old  Marathonian  soldiers,  dimly  conscious 


120  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

of  doing  not  only  a  national,  but  a  world-histori 
cal  deed. 

Accordingly  the  first  part  of  the  pivotal  year 
of  1856  may  be  regarded  as  having  completed 
its  round  or  cycle  with  the  two  Conventions. 
Now  follows  the  second  part  of  the  year,  the 
Campaign,  proper,  with  its  multitutinous  assem 
blages  of  the  folk  listening  to  speeches  and 
debates,  with  its  noisy  blowing  of  horns,  par 
ticularly  of  fog-horns,  large  and  little,  with 
that  vigorous  churning  of  the  masses  to  make 
them  realize  their  Constitution  and  Govern 
ment  —  all  of  which  a  Presidential  election 
brings  and  oujjht  to  bring.  Still  underneath 

O  C  <5 

this  seemingly  chaotic  multiplicity  of  doings, 
there  is  an  order,  yes  a  process  which  is  simple 
enough,  and  which  has  the  same  fundamental 
character  as  the  one  just  given,  though  different 
in  details.  This  underlying  historic  process  is 
what  we  shall  now  briefly  present. 

1.  Washington.  In  view  of  the  approaching 
Campaign,  the  Administration  sought  not  only 
not  to  irritate  but  to  calm  the  Kansas  troubles, 
which  had  shown  such  a  reverberating  power  in 
the  North.  It  was  freely  said  by  Democrats  that 
Buchanan  could  not  be  elected  unless  Kansas 
was  pacified.  Accordingly  the  President  sent  a 
new  Governor  of  the  Territory,  who  was  to  bring 
peace  at  all  hazards.  Robinson,  the  Free-State 
leader,  after  four  months'  imprisonment,  was 


PART  I.  -  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN.    121 

released  on  bail,  and  the  legal  ban  of  treason 
was  removed  by  Judge  Lecompte  himself,  its 
originator,  doubtless  by  orders  from  Washington. 
The  new  Governor,  Geary,  arrived  in  September 
and  found  work  enough.  Still  he  had  remark 
able  success.  Before  the  national  election  he 
could  send  forth  the  statement  already  cited, 
that  peace  reigned  in  Kansas.  But  it  was  only 
a  temporary  lull  in  the  storm,  though  Geary  was 
honest  in  his  opinion,  and  showed  himself  both 
a  courageous  and  a  fair-minded  man.  More 
over  Judge  Lecompte,  called  the  Kansas  Jeffries, 
was  removed.  President  Pierce,  having  lost  the 
grand  prize,  was  minded  to  be  not  quite  so  sub 
servient  to  his  masters,  who  on  their  part  had 
resolved  to  try  a  new  tool,  this  one  being  quite 
broken  to  pieces  in  their  service. 

But  the  most  significant  attempt  to  get  rid  of 
the  Kansas  burden  was  the  bill  introduced  by 
the  Georgia  Senator,  Robert  Toombs,  a  few  days 
after  the  Republican  Convention  (June  24th). 
As  we  look  at  this  bill  now,  it  is  eminently  fair; 
in  fact  it  seems  to  give  up  the  Kansas  fight,  and 
to  recognize  the  triumph  of  the  Free-State  prin 
ciple.  It  provided  for  a  census  of  the  actual 
inhabitants  who  alone  were  to  have  the  right  to 
vote,  and  who  were  to  choose  delegates  to  a  con 
stitutional  Convention.  The  whole  was  to  be 
under  the  direction  of  five  competent  persons 
appointed  by  the  President  and  confirmed  by  the 


122  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

Senate.  The  Convention  was  to  form  a  Consti 
tution  preparatory  to  the  admission  of  Kansas 
as  a  State.  There  was  to  be  due  protection 
against  illegal  voting  that  there  might  be  ««  an 
honest  expression  of  the  opinion  of  the  present 
inhabitants." 

There  is  still  a  question  as  to  the  motives 
which  lay  behind  this  remarkable  bill.  It  seems 
to  indicate  a  change  of  Southern  attitude,  a  sud 
den  unaccountable  transformation.  Was  it  sim 
ply  an  electioneering  document  to  take  the  wind 
out  of  the  Republican  sails?  So  the  Republicans 
deemed  it,  and  sought  in  every  way  to  keep  for 
themselves  the  magazine  whence  came  their  best 
campaign  ammunition.  It  will  never  do  to  let 
the  Democrats,  and  particularly  these  Southern 
ers,  crowd  us  out  of  our  place  and  make  Kansas 
a  Free-State.  The  chief  stress  of  attack  was  on 
the  appointment  of  the  five  commissioners  by 
the  President,  but  this  objection  could  have  been 
easily  obviated.  The  Toombs  bill  was  a  con 
summate  political  move.  If  the  Republicans 
accepted  it,  the  Democrats  got  the  credit ;  if 
they  refused  it,  they  would  go  before  the  country 
as  wishing  to  keep  Kansas  in  a  stew,  in  order 
that  her  screams  might  benefit  the  party.  Even 
Douglas  was  roused  to  sudden  emulation,  and  in 
troduced  a  new  bill  rivaling  that  of  Toombs  in 
its  liberal  provisions  for  the  Free-State  voters. 
But  let  us  hear  the  outcome :  the  Senate  passed 


PART  I  -  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN-    12o 

the  Toombs  bill  by  33  to  12,  the  nays  being 
Republican;  the  House,  since  it  was  Republican, 
never  took  the  bill  up. 

Accordingly  we  hear  the  charge  by  the  Demo 
cratic  campaign  speakers  and  newspapers  that 
the  Republicans  did  not  wish  to  have  the  trouble 
settled,  that  they  were  not  ready  to  stanch  the 
wound  of  "  Bleeding  Kansas  "  but  rather  sought 

O  O 

to  make  her  bleed  the  more  for  political  effect. 
Her  shouts  of  torture,  echoed  from  that  enor 
mous  Atlantic  fog-horn  of  journalism,  and 
reiterated  now  from  the  thousand  throats  of 
political  orators  with  sympathetic  eloquence,  were 
transmuted  into  a  ceaseless  roll  of  campaign 
thunder  whose  detonations  quake  us  still  in 
memory.  No  wonder  that  the  Democrats  wanted 
some  offset  to  stay  that  overwhelming  avalanche 
of  the  spoken  and  written  word,  which  was 
sweeping  everybody  in  the  North  off  their  feet. 
Moreover  the  same  implement,  that  marvelous 
reduplicating  printing-press,  is  to  be  employed 
by  the  other  side;  so  we  learn  that  20, 000 copies 
of  the  Toombs  bill  were  ordered  by  the  Senate 
to  be  printed,  for  the  purpose  of  being  circu 
lated  as  an  electioneering  document.  But  what 
a  little  piping  sound  that  would  make  in  com 
parison  with  the  Republican  fog-horn,  in  whose 
sounding  sea  it  was  literally  swallowed  up ! 

In  these  cairn  days  the  historical  reader  is  in 
clined  to  look  upon  the  Toombs  bill  with  favor. 


124  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

"Whatever be  his  political  sympathies,  he  will  enjoy 
the  complete  discomfit  ure  of  the  Republicans,  when 
their  own  thunderbolts  were  deftly  removed  from 
the  party  armory,  and  began  to  be  turned  against 
their  former  custodians.  No  wonder  Sevvard  and 
the  rest  were  badly  upset,  crying  as  old  Dennis 
once  did  in  the  theater:  You  have  stolen  my 
thunder.  Such  an  unblushing  theft  was  enough 
to  make  grave  Senators  turn  red  with  indignation, 
and  to  cause  the  Republican  Representatives  to 
smother  the  illegitimate  bantling  at  its  very 
birth.  And  as  to  the  deeper  motives  of  the 
Southerners  we  are  left  in  the  dark;  we  cannot 
help  suspecting  them,  though  we  believe  that 
Toombs  was  honest  when  he  drew  the  bill,  even  if 
afterwards  he  was  led  to  change  his  mind.  For 
after  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  the  Southern  line 
of  policy  indicated  by  the  bill  was  wholly  altered, 
if  indeed  it  was  ever  seriously  intended  by  the 
leading  spirits  of  the  Oligarchy. 

2.   Kansas.  Passing  from  the  center  again  to 

o  o 

the  border,  after  the  Sack  of  Lawrence  we  find 
that  there  was  still  trouble  enough  between  the 
pro-slavery  party  and  the  Free-State  men. 
Shannon,  the  Governor,  fled  from  the  Territory 
and  left  his  authority  in  the  hands  of  the 
Secretary,  Daniel  Woodson,  who  was  of  the 
violent  pro-slavery  type,  and  friendly  to  the 
Missourians.  At  once  word  was  sent  to  the 
latter  that  their  opportunity  had  come. 


PART  I.  —  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN.      125 

For  the  town  of  Lawrence,  after  its  Sack,  had 
revived  and  again  had  begun  to  be  a  center  of 
military  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Free-State 
men.  The  vicinity  of  the  place  was  guarded  by 
several  small  forts  or  block-houses  held  by  its 
enemies  for  the  purpose  of  cutting  off  supplies. 
Food  became  very  scarce  in  the  Free-State 
citadel,  whose  people  sent  out  forces  to  capture 
these  hostile  places.  Thus  the  siege  of  Lawrence 
began  to  be  raised,  and  further  warfare  seemed 
to  come  to  an  end  in  a  peace  patched  up  by 
Governor  Shannon.  This  was  the  conclusion  of 
his  gubernatorial  career,  being  succeeded  by  the 
above  mentioned  Secretary  Woodson  in  the 
interim.  The  latter  at  once  started  the  war 
anew  by  issuing  a  proclamation  which  declared 
the  territory  to  be  "  in  a  state  of  open  insurrec 
tion  and  rebellion."  He  called  upon  all  patriotic 
citizens  to  rally  to  the  defense  of  "  Law  and 
Order,"  which  was  the  cloak  for  afresh  invasion, 
the  fourth. 

The  strongest  and  best  equipped  force  which 
Missouri  had  ever  sent  out  over  tlie  border,  began 
to  approach  Lawrence  about  the  middle  of  Sep 
tember.  Its  members  reached  2,500  men  armed 
and  organized,  with  infantry,  cavalry  and  artil 
lery.  They  had  come  not  to  vote  but  to  fight, 
and  their  first  objective  point  was  Lawrence,  and 
then  Topeka.  These  two  Free-State  towns  were 
to  be  wiped  out  completely,  and  the  settlers 


126  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

driven  from  the  country.  It  was  to  be  the  grand 
final  stroke  of  the  border  conflict. 

But  some  days  before  this  (Sept.  10),  the  new 
Governor,  Geary,  had  arrived.  Lawrence  was 
in  a  helpless  condition,  though  Robinson  (who 
had  been  released)  and  others  tried  to  put  it  into 
a  state  of  defense.  Word  was  sent  to  the  Gov 
ernor  at  Lecomptou  who  at  once  ordered  Federal 
troops  to  the  scene.  These  arrived  just  in  time 
to  intercept  the  march  of  the  Missourians  toward 
the  town.  The  Governor  himself  at  once  fol 
lowed  and  called  to  a  parley  the  leaders  of  the 
invasion,  of  whom  Atchison  was  the  chief. 
The  result  was  that  the  whole  force  turned  back 
to  Missouri,  Atchison  stating  that  "he  (the 
Governor)  promised  all  we  wanted." 

The  conduct  of  Atchison  in  these  border 
forays  causes  many  a  reflection  as  to  his  motives. 
A  case  might  be  made  out  that  he  went  along 
with  the  extremists  in  order  to  restrain  .them 
from  excessive  violence,  perchance  to  thwart  their 
policy.  Stringfellow,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
the  bitter  partisan  and  revolutionist  who  proposed 
to  destroy  his  enemies  without  mercy,  and  with 
out  regard  to  existing  authority.  The  compari 
son  again  recurs  that  he  was  the  John  Brown  on 
the  Missouri  side. 

Thus  the  Fourth  Invasion,  at  first  the  most 
threatening  of  all,  is  completely  nullified  and 
undone,  not  by  Robinson's  phantom  anti-gov- 


PART  I.  —  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN.      127 

eminent,  but  by  Geary's  actual  government. 
A  great  step  forward  for  the  Free-State  men ; 
the  illegal  right  is  getting  legal,  being  enforced 
by  constituted  authority.  The  last  Missouri  in 
vasion  has  taken  place  when  it  has  to  meet 
United  States  soldiers  in  its  path.  There  re 
mains,  however,  the  fraudulent,  but  legitimated 
Territorial  Government,  with  its  legal  body  but 
illegal  soul,  having  the  letter  of  the  Law  with 
out  its  spirit.  Under  these  circumstances  the 
anti-government  has  still  a  reason  for  not  dying, 
and  so  keeps  up  its  shadowy  existence. 

What  Geary  said  is  not  fully  known,  though 
there  is  no  doubt  he  impressed  upon  the  minds 
of  those  leaders  the  political  effect  of  another 
Sack  of  Lawrence  in  the  heat  of  a  dubious 
Presidential  contest.  He  must  have  threatened 
them  with  his  own  personal  opposition  as  well 
as  that  of  the  Administration.  Then  he  had  at 
his  back  a  troop  of  United  States  soldiers,  the 
most  convincing  argument  of  all. 

At  once  the  Territory  became,  if  not  quiet,  at 
least  quiescent,  and  Geary  could  report  that  he 
had  brought  peace  to  Kansas,  at  present  sorely 
needed  for  the  Democratic  campaign.  The  Re 
publican  orators  could  now  be  partially  answered, 
and  Lawrence,  instead  of  sending  shrieks  of 
pain  for  reverberation  through  the  mighty  meg 
aphone,  gave  forth  joyful  cries  of  deliverance, 
which  sounded  more  joyful  to  Democrats  than 


128  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAli. 

to  Republicans.  But  it  was  a  narrow  escape. 
As  sure  as  the  sun  rises  to-morrow,  if  those 
Missourians  enter  and  sack  Lawrence  again, 
Fremont  is  elected.  Let  the  LTnited  States 
dragoons  ride  at  a  gallop  down  the  road 
from  Lecompton,  and  the  foot-soldiers  fol 
low  at  double-quick,  to  intercept  the  invaders 
now  deploying  in  sight  of  the  seemingly  doomed 
town.  And  thou,  O  Geary,  bestir  thyself  with 
all  dispatch  toward  the  same  point,  for  the  course 
of  America's  History,  perchance  of  all  History, 
turns  on  the  delay  of  a  day,  possibly  of  an  hour. 
Fremont  elected  !  Ride,  ride  with  unchecked  rein, 
in  obedience  to  a  mightier  command  than  thou 
hast  ever  heard  before,  since  the  coming  President 
of  the  United  States  is  to  be  chosen  by  thee,  yes 
by  thee,  in  the  next  few  hours. 

So  Geary  makes  his  ride  to  Lawrence,  under 
the  very  pressure  and  urgency  of  the  World- 
Spirit,  whose  behest  he  is  fulfilling.  Buchanan 
can  now  be  elected  President,  and  the  Great  War 
be  deferred  another  four  years. 

3.  The  Country.  We  may  next  glance  at 
the  third  item  in  the  present  movement  along 
with  Washington  and  Kansas,  namely  the 
Country  as  a  whole.  This  is  now  undergoing 
the  turmoil  of  a  Presidential  campaign,  which 
echoes  in  an  enormous  volume  of  words  the 
strife  in  Kansas.  The  two  Conventions,  as 


PART  I.  —  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN.      129 

already  set  forth,  have  nominated  the  candidates 
upon  their  respective  platforms. 

The  campaign  was  profoundly  educational  and 
ultimately  was  based  upon  an  interpretation 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Did 
this  give  the  power  to  Congress  to  control 
Slavery  in  the  Territories?  The  affirmative 
was  maintained  by  the  Republicans.  The 
People  were  thus  thrown  back  to  reflect  upon 
their  organic  law.  The  formulated  expression 
of  what  made  them  a  Nation  must  not  only 
be  studied  and  explained,  but  unfolded  into 
its  consequences.  Two  different  interpretations 
of  the  Constitution  grappled  and  struggled  for 
the  possession  of  the  future.  The  one  as 
serted  that  this  genetic  law  of  the  Federal 
Union  made  it  the  generator  of  Free-States, 
the  other  of  Slave-States  as  well,  if  not  alto 
gether.  The  prodigious  advantage  of  the 
Northern  orator  was  that  he  could  appeal  to  the 
undying  passion  of  freedom  in  the  soul  of  his 
hearers.  Vague  enough  was  such  feeling,  but 
it  was  very  real  and  very  powerful.  A  famous 
philosopher  has  said  that  the  great  goal  of 
History,  of  the  total  historic  movement  of  the 
race,  is  the  realization  of  freedom.  The  pursuit 
of  this  end  is  what  has  united  all  mankind  from 
the  beginning,  and  thus  made  humanity  a  unit. 
The  Republican  speakers  and  writers  could  justly 
appeal  to  the  deepest  passion  of  the  human  heart. 

9 


130  THE   TEN   YEARS'   WAR. 

The  Democrats  had  to  apologize,  to  scoff  at 
the  freedom-shriekers,  and  to  satirize  the  ex 
travagances  of  individuals.  Then  came  that 
pathetic  theme  of  Bleeding  Kansas,  beaten,  tor 
tured,  woe-laden  in  the  cause  of  freedom.  The 
opposition  were  put  on  the  defensive,  could  only 
excuse  or  deny  the  facts,  or  promise  better  things 
when  the  new  Administration  came  into  power, 
of  which  an  earnest  might  already  be  seen  in  the 
success  of  Governor  Geary.  This  was,  however, 
a  losing  game  unless  the  Democrats  could  find 
some  positive  ground-theme  for  the  support  of 
which  they  could  appeal  to  the  People. 

Fortunately  for  themselves,  they  laid  hold  of  a 
subject  which  would  stir  the  heart  of  the  People 
quite  as  deeply  as  the  note  of  freedom.  This 
was  the  love  of  the  Union.  Buchanan  in  his 
letter  of  acceptance  gave  his  adhesion  to  the 
Kansas  policy  of  Douglas  and  Pierce ;  but  he 
also  put  special  stress  upon  the  Unionism  of  the 
Democratic  party  in  contrast  with  the  sectional 
ism  of  the  Republicans.  Both  their  candidates 
for  President  and  Vice-President  were  from  the 
Free-States.  There  was  in  the  South  no  Repub 
lican  vote;  this  lay  wholly  north  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line.  Since  the  Free-States  had  176 
votes  in  the  electoral  College  and  the  Slave  States 
but  121 — nearly  the  ratio  of  3  to  2 —  the  charge 
lay  near  that  the  Republicans  were  a  sectional 
party,  from  which  fact  the  inference  was  drawn 


PART  I.  —  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN.      131 

that  their  supremacy  endangered  the  Union. 
This  was  reinforced  by  the  open  threats  of 
disunion  on  the  part  of  leading  Southern 
ers  in  the  case  of  Fremont's  election.  One 
might  well  ask,  which  side  contained  the  dis- 
unionists  in  view  of  such  menaces?  Still 
the  appeal  to  love  of  the  Union  in  the  hearts 
of  the  People  was  very  effective,  and  prob 
ably  decided  the  election.  Once  more  the 
Northerners  in  sufficient  numbers  paid  heed  to 
these  threats,  but  the  next  time  they  will  not 
listen.  The  experience,  however,  will  not  be 
thrown  away,  and  the  logic  will  be  relentlessly 
drawn :  if  the  South  threatens  disunion  when  it 
cannot  have  its  own  way,  being  in  the  minority, 
then  they  are  the  disunionists.  This  is  what  the 
coming  four  years  are  to  prove.  The  election  of 
President  by  the  legal  majority  is  now  fore 
shadowed  to  end  in  secession.  Already  in  1856 
the  South  mentally  was  getting  ready  to  go  out 
of  the  Union. 

Such  was,  however,  the  result  of  the  conflict 
in  Kansas.  That  small  local  border  between  it 
and  Missouri  running  longitudinally  has  now  been 
extended  into  a  dividing  line  from  the  West  to 
the  Atlantic,  splitting  open  the  Union  between 
North  and  South  which  begins  to  gape  wide  all 
along  Mason  and  Dixon'sline.  Still  the  rent  will 
seem  to  close  after  the  election.  The  love  of  the 
Union,  however,  now  so  strongly  inculcated  by 


132  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

the  Democrats,  will  have  its  true  effect  when  four 
years  hence  it  will  rise  in  the  North  with  a  mighty 
outburst  against  the  Southern  disunionists,  who 
are  thus  helping-forge  thunderbolts  against  them 
selves  for  future  use.  Now  we  may  see  that  the 
Democratic  party,  especially  in  the  North,  re 
ceives  a  great  training  in  Unionism  through  the 
campaign  for  Buchanan — a  training  which  will 
bear  fruit  in  1861. 

The  Democratic  platform  and  speakers  depre 
cated  the  agitation  of  the  slavery  question.  The 
Southerners  must  be  let  alone  in  their  extension 
of  black  servitude.  The  ever  reduplicating  voice 
of  the  press  was  indeed  their  chief  foe,  to  whom 
they  could  only  cry  stop  !  They  had  no  adequate 
means  for  counteracting  it;  they  could  not  get 
at  the  Northern  megaphone,  and  could  not  con 
struct  one  of  their  own.  So  it  kept  sounding  in 
their  faces  and  drowning  their  voices.  Still  the 
People  of  the  North  were  not  yet  sufficiently 
united  to  defeat  the  Southerners.  Pennsylvania 
and  New  Jersey  in  the  East,  Indiana  and  Illinois 
in  the  West,  and  California  on  the  Pacific,  all  of 
them  Free-States,  joined  with  the  sum  total  of 
Slave-States,  except  Maryland  which  voted  for 
Fillmore,  to  elect  Buchanan,  who  received  174 
electoral  votes  to  Fremont's  114.  A  large  major 
ity  of  the  Northern  States  chose  the  Republican 
candidate,  yet  each  had  a  decided  Democratic 
minority,  so  that  Buchanan  in  the  popular  vote  of 


PART  I,  —  THE  PRESIDENTIAL  CAMPAIGN.      133 

the  Free-States  fell  behind  Fremont  a  little  more 
than  100,000.  On  the  other  hand  there  was  no 
Republican  minority  in  the  South  except  a  hand 
ful  iuthe  Border  States,  not  reaching  1,200  votes 
in  1856  all  told.  Very  distinctly  does  the  Presi 
dential  election  of  1856  show  a  disunited  North 
against  a  united  South  upon  the  great  question  of 
the  time :  Shall  the  Union  continue  to  be  Slave- 
State  producing?  Not  yet  ready  is  even  the 
Northern  Folk-Soul  to  face  the  responsibilities  of 
victory.  Fremont  is  not  the  man,  and  the  Repub 
lican  party  is  too  inexperienced  for  political  rule. 


134  TEE  TEN  YEAE&   WAR. 


©utloofc, 

The  Republican  party  which  cast  such  an  aston 
ishing  vote  in  1856,  was  barely  one  year  old,  and 
must  be  sent  to  school.  .  Young  and  vigorous  as  a 
hickory  sapling,  it  is  very  verdant  and  altogether 
too  sappy ;  the  infant,  though  a  Hercules,  must  be 
put  under  severe  training,  in  order  to  conquer  the 
Giants  of  Darkness  at  the  next  great  contest. 
Four  years  more  this  new  schooling  must  last,  till 
the  Folk-Soul  graduate  fully  prepared  for  its 
work.  Not  yet  sufficiently  indurated  and  indoc 
trinated  in  its  principles  is  the  North,  which  has 
still  to  take  up  into  its  very  being  that  the  Union 
must  indeed  be  preserved,  but  shall  produce  no 
more  Slave-States.  The  work  of  Kansas  is,  then, 
not  yet  finished ;  her  throes  must  again  be  roused 
from  Washington  in  a  final  supreme  effort  to  make 
hers  a  polity  enslaved,  in  opposition  to  her  des 
perate  struggles. 

So  the  North  has  to  undergo  the  discipline  of 
defeat,  painful  but  salutary.  It  has  not  been 
united  upon  the  great  duty  of  the  Age ;  it  has 
not  obeyed  fully  the  behest  of  the  World-Spirit. 
Olympian  Zeus,  or  his  modern  representative  in 
A  nerica,  declares  to  the  Northern  Folk-Soul  now 
.mmoned  into  his  presence  and  given  an  out- 
1  u>k  upon  the  far  vaster  coming  plan  in  his 


PART  I.  —  OUTLOOK.  135 

bosoin:  "Not  only  must  you  stop  producing 
Slave-States,  you  must  now  think  of  undoing 
slavery  in  the  new,  and  then  in  the  old  Slave- 
States,  if  you  wish  to  win  the  favor  of  the  Gods." 
Replies  the  American  Folk-Soul:  "I  cannot 
touch  slavery  in  the  States  where  it  is  already 
established  by  law."  Whereupon  Zeus  frowning 
answers:  "Then  I  shall  turn  against  you,  and 
scourge  you,  and  humiliate  you  with  defeat,  till 
you  do  fulfill  the  decree  sent  from  above."  Such 
is  the  discipline  of  defeat  often  recorded  in  that 
old  Greek  as  well  as  in  our  American  Iliad,  the 
peculiar  training  from  the  hand  of  Zeus  himself, 
meted  out  even  to  the  people  whom  he  favors 
till  they  do  the  right  thing. 

And  by  way  of  counterpart  it  must  be  added 
that  the  South  also  is  in  training  through  these 
events ;  indeed  she  shows  herself  trained  already 
to  a  fixed  purpose  by  her  long  possession  of 
national  power.  We  have  to  believe  that  she 
thinks  she  must  rule  in  any  case,  rule  by 
violence  if  necessary;  though  now  clearly  a 
minority,  she  deems  that  the  government  of  the 
Nation  is  hers  by  a  kind  of  hereditary  right. 
She  will  use  the  Law  as  long  as  she  can;  but 
when  she  can  no  longer  administer  it  in  her  own 
interest,  she  will  defy  it  and  revolt.  In  Kansas 
we  have  seen  how  she  employs  legal  forms  to 
bolster  her  supremacy  against  the  majorit}^. 
Really  this  has  been  her  study  for  many  years 


loO  THE  TEN  YEAR&    WAR. 

ill  ruling  the  Nation,  in  fact  ever  since  the  North 
began  to  outstrip  her  in  numbers  and  wealth. 
We  can  now  see  that  she  put  altogether  too 
great  faith,  lawyer  that  she  was,  in  formal 
legality,  paying  too  little  regard  to  the  spirit  of 
the  Law,  to  that  elemental  justice  which  is  the 
original  of  all  Laws  and  gives  to  them  even  their 
forms.  So  the  South  as  well  as  the  North,  in 
this  bitter  Kansas  testing  of  souls,  shows  her 
character  and  her  deepest  consciousness,  giving 
also  suggestive  glimpses  of  what  she  will  do  in 
the  future. 

But  the  year  1856  has  given  to  the  South 
another  quadrennial  lease  of  power,  though  with 
many  a  sharp  admonition,  which  she  would  do 
well  to  heed.  The  cry  of  an  endangered  Union, 
raised  by  her  and  her  supporters,  has  been 
listened  to  by  a  sufficient  number  of  Northern 
States  to  keep  her  still  in  her  national  supremacy. 
But  is  she  really  honest  in  her  anxiety  about  the 
Union,  or  is  she  merely  or  mainly  threatening? 
That  is  what  she  is  now  given  an  opportunity  to 
prove.  The  sincerity  of  her  love  for  the  Union 
is  already  questioned  just  through  her  menaces. 
She  must  expect  that  the  real  lovers  of  the 
Union  will  the  next  time  reply:  The  Union 
cannot  let  itself  be  threatened,  particularly  by 
its  friends. 


CHAPTER    III.      THE    STRUGGLE   RE 
NEWED.     (1857-8.) 

The  peace  which  Geary  brought  to  Kansas  in 
1856,  is  destined  to  turn  out  delusive.  Invasion 
from  Missouri  has  indeed  shown  itself  unsuc 
cessful  so  often,  that  it  is  given  up,  at  least  on 
its  large  scale;  but  another  method  has  been 
excogitated  at  Washington,  which  is  to  renew 
the  old  struggle  by  applying  fresh  instruments 
of  torture  to  the  people  of  Kansas  that  they  be 
compelled  to  adopt  slavery.  This  is  essentially 
a  return  to  the  beginning  of  the  contest  in  1855, 
all  of  which  has  to  be  fought  over  again. 

There  was  at  first  a  cessation  of  political 
excitement  in  the  North  after  the  election,  as  it 
was  generally  thought  that  Buchanan  would  give 
to  Kansas  self-government,  which  of  course 
meant  that  she  would  be  a  Free-State.  And 
such  wras  doubtless  Buchanan's  early  purpose. 
But  when  he  was  fairly  launched  on  the  sea  of 

(137) 


138  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAE. 

Washington  pro-slavery  influence,  he  began  to 
change.  Moreover  that  dualism  in  the  Demo 
cratic  platform  starts  to  opening  wider  and 
wider,  and  he  has  to  take  sides.  He,  weak  in 
himself,  is  borne  forward  by  the  stronger  current 
of  his  party. 

In  his  inauguration  address,  the  President 
alludes  to  a  judicial  decision  soon  to  be  given, 
which  would  settle  "the  whole  territorial  question 
upon  the  principle  of  popular  sovereignty." 
Thus  Buchanan  knew  beforehand  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  and  of  its  interpretation  of  popu 
lar  sovereignty.  Did  he  have  any  hand  in  bring- 

inor  about  that  decision?     Seward    and  Lincoln 

n 

thought  so ;  but  in  view  of  his  character  the 
probability  is  that  he  simply  accepted  the  scheme 
which  the  Southerners  had  forged  in  their  own 
inner  circle. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  great  new  move  of 
the  slave-power  to  destroy  the  Republican  party 
and  to  keep  their  domination  against  the  ever- 
increasing  majority  of  the  North,  and  specially 
to  make  Kansas  a  Slave-State.  The  National 
Judiciary  is  to  be  dragged  into  the  political  con 
flict,  as  the  Territorial  Judiciary  of  Kansas  had 
already  been  made  to  protect  and  to  assist  the 
Missouri  invaders.  Two  days  after  Buchanan's 
inauguration  Taney,  the  Chief  Justice,  gave  the 
opinion  of  the  majority  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
the  case  of  the  negro  Dred  Scott.  Without 


PAR  T  L—  THE  S  TE  UG  GL  E  RENE  WED.       139 

going  into  the  many  collateral  points  of  this 
famous  decision,  we  shall  select  the  following: 
(1)  There  is  no  difference,  according  to  the 
Constitution,  between  slave  property  and  any 
other  kind  of  property ;  both  kinds  are  entitled 
to  the  same  protection.  Still  the  Constitution, 
(we  may  here  interpolate)  did  make  a  distinc 
tion,  when  it  never  required  the  return  of 
escaped  horses  and  cattle,  but  did  require  the 
rendition  of  a  person  held  to  service.  (2)  A 
free  negro  whose  ancestor  was  a  slave  is  not  a 
citizen  within  the  meaning  of  the  Constitution 
and  cannot  sue  in  the  United  States  Courts. 
(3)  The  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820  is  un 
constitutional,  Congress  having  no  power  to  pass 
it.  (4)  The  Declaration  of  Independence  re 
ceives  also  judicial  interpretation.  The  famous 
clause  "  that  all  men  are  created  equal,"  was 
not  intended  to  apply  to  '«  the  enslaved  African 
race." 

Two  members  of  the  Court  dissented,  one  of 
whom,  Judge  B.  R.  Curtis,  made  himself  for  a 
time  the  protagonist  of  freedom,  and  turned  the 
Court  against  itself,  causing  it  to  show  the  dual 
ism  of  the  time.  Curtis  proved  historically  that 
in  a  number  of  States  at  the  time  of  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  negroes  were  not  only  citi 
zens,  but  were  voters.  The  Judge  then  traversed 
the  opinion  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  was 
unconstitutional  by  citing  eight  distinct  instances 


HO  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAE. 

in  which  Congress  excluded  Slavery  from  the 
Territories,  and  six.  distinct  instances  in  which 
Congress  maintained  Slavery  in  the  Territories. 
He  also  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  Fathers 
were  not  liable  "to  the  reproach  of  inconsistency 
when  they  declared  that  all  men  are  created 
equal;"  they  did  not  intend  to  except  the  black 
man.  Another  effective  blow:  "  Slavery  being 
contrary  to  natural  right,  is  created  only  by 
municipal  law."  This  may  be  deemed  a  re 
affirmation  of  Lord  Mansfield's  famous  doctrine 
that  when  a  slave  sets  foot  on  the  soil  of  En 
gland,  he  is  free,  there  being  no  municipal  law 
supporting  slavery.  On  the  other  hand  it  was  a 
true  inference  from  Taney's  decision  that  in  the 
Union  slavery  existed  in  every  State ;  thus  it  was 
made  national.  When  a  slave  set  foot  in  a  Free- 
State  of  the  Union,  it  became  logically  a  Slave- 
State. 

On  this  side,  however,  the  South,  as  the  sup 
porter  of  State  Rights,  overstepped  itself,  for 
the  individual  State  could  no  longer  constitution 
ally  exclude  slavery.  This  inference  was  not 
explicitly  drawn  by  Taney,  but  remained  for  the 
future,  enough  having  been  done  for  once.  But 
we  shall  see  Lincoln  drawing  it  and  calling  it  in 
advance  the  second  Dred  Scott  decision.  Thus 
the  nationalization  of  slavery  in  accord  with 
the  doctrine  of  Calhoun  had  been  declared  to  be 
the  highest  law  of  land.  Still  that  utterance 


PART  I.  —  THE  STRUGGLE  RENEWED.       141 

revealed   the    deepest   kind    of    a    rent   in   the 
Supreme  Court  itself. 

A  far  weightier  inference  is  that  the  Republican 
party  has  been  decided  by  the  highest  Tribunal  to 
be  unconstitutional.  What  is  to  be  done?  Obey 
the  law  and  let  Slavery  take  all,  or  is  the  alter 
native  revolution?  The  new  problem  set  many 
a  Northern  head  to  thinking.  At  this  point  the 
words  of  Judge  Curtis  again  furnished  light. 
The  decision  of  «*  this  or  any  court  is  not  bind 
ing  when  expressed  on  a  question  not  legitimately 
before  it."  The  negro's  citizenship,  as  well  as 
the  constitutionality  of  the  Missouri  Compromise 
were  alien  matters  dragged  in  by  extra-judicial 
considerations.  Properly  then,  nothing  has  been 
decided,  and  the  case  should  be  dismissed  "  for 
want  of  jurisdiction." 

Again  the  reverberation  of  the  press  began 
making  a  noise  equal  to  that  of  the  Presidential 
campaign.  The  legal  aspects  of  the  decision 
were  discussed  and  explained  to  the  People,  who 
had  now  to  go  to  school  again  to  the  Constitu 
tion,  which  is  to  be  overhauled  in  the  popular 
mind  from  its  very  foundation.  This  decision 
so  ominous,  can  it  not  be  changed?  The  answer 
of  Lincoln  was  that  the  Supreme  Court  had  often 
reversed  itself  and  can  do  so  again.  But  what 
about  this  Constitution  itself  —  who  made  it? 
At  the  very  beginning  of  it  the  People  could  not' 
help  finding  this  clause:  '*  We,  the  People,  do 


142  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution."  More 
over  a  special  Article  (the  Fifth)  was  found 
which  prescribed  the  manner  of  changing  the 
Constitution  itself.  So  the  People  begin  their 
training,  not  merely  toward  reversing  the  deci 
sion,  but  transforming  the  Court  which  made  it, 
yea  toward  transforming  the  Constitution  itself. 
Such  a  discipline  was  initiated  by  the  Dred 
Scott  case;  it  made  the  People  more  and  more 
legal-minded  through  the  study  of  their  organic 
law.  It  compelled  the  Folk-Soul  to  take  back 
into  itself  the  Constitution,  which  once  sprang 
from  it,  and  to  begin  making  this  over  in  accord 
with  the  new  spirit.  It  has  been  brought  to 
deny  that  the  negro  is  a  human  being  with  rights 
which  can  be  vindicated  by  the  established  law. 
If  that  is  the  case,  the  whole  Constitution  must 
be  re-committed  to  the  People  whence  it  camo, 
and  be  wrought  over  and  at  least  be  amended  in 
the  defective  portions.  Such  is  the  outlook 
upon  the  coming  years,  for  this  work  cannot  bo 
done  in  a  hurry.  In  a  little  more  than  a  decade, 
however,  the  Dred  Scott  decision  will  be  com 
pletely  reversed  by  the  People  (Amendments 
XIII  and  XIV),  and  the  Constitution  trans 
formed  according  to  the  Constitution. 

The  Dred  Scott  decision  was  a  two-edged 
weapon,  which  could  certainly  be  turned  upon 
its  friends.  If  it  undid  the  Republican  party,  it 
assailed  equally  the  basis  of  the  Popular  Sover- 


PAR T  I,  —  THE  STRUGGLE  E ENE WED.        143 

eignty  doctrine  of  Douglas.  The  People  of  a 
Territory  or  its  legislature  had  no  right  to  keep 
out  the  slaveholder  with  his  property,  and  let  in 
the  farmer  with  his  horses  and  cattle;  that  would 
destroy  the  eqality  of  the  States  in  the  common 
domain  of  the  Union.  But  the  decision  went 
further:  it  assailed  the  Southern  doctrine  of 
State-Rights,  since  any  State  by  anti-slavery 
legislation  would  disturb  that  same  equality. 
Possibly,  however,  State-Rights  were  only  for 
the  South,  and  not  for  the  North. 

Judge  Taney  had  a  high  view  of  his  office, 
so  high  that  he  deemed  that  the  World's  His 
tory  was  controlled  by  the  decision  of  the  Su 
preme  Court.  But  it  is  not  the  Supreme  Tri 
bunal  of  the  Ages,  still  less  is  it  the  Supreme 
Tribunal  of  the  United  States.  The  People 
created  it,  and  ultimately  every  decision  must 
be  referred  back  to  them  for  confirmation, 
and  perchance  the  Court  itself  may  have  to 
be  referred  back  and  be  re-established. 
Taney 's  delusion  belonged  to  his  class  and  his 
section ;  both  refused  to  see  the  trend  of  the 
Age  and  sought  to  stop  the  movement  by  a 
Pope's  bull  against  a  comet.  In  its  deepest 
tendency  the  decision  nullifies  itself,  destroying 
instead  of  supporting  Slavery,  undermining  in 
stead  of  bolstering  State-Rights.  In  the  Court 
itself  this  self-nullification  was  manifested 
strongly  in  the  dissenting  opinion  of  Curtis, 


144  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

which  traversed  tbe  judgment  of  the  Chief  Jus 
tice  at  every  leading  point,  and  even  denied  the 
Court's  jurisdiction  in  the  case  as  presented. 
Even  as  to  law,  the  consensus  of  the  best 
lawyers  to-day  seems  to  be  that  Curtis  was  right 
and  Taney  wrong. 

Douglas  accepted  the  Dred  Scott  decision  with 
an  air  of  triumph,  since  it  vindicated  his  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise,  for  which  so  much  ob 
loquy  had  been  poured  upon  him  by  the  North. 
It  now  turns  out,  so  he  declares,  that  he  had 
simply  done  away  with  an  enactment  unconsti 
tutional  from  the  beginning.  But  how  was  he 
going  to  reconcile  his  Popular  Sovereignty  with 
the  decision?  The  right  of  the  slaveholder  to 
his  negroes  holds  good  in  the  Territories,  says 
he,  but  it  is  worthless  unless  protected  by  the 
local  legislature  and  its  police  regulations.  These 
depend  on  the  will  of  the  people.  This  view 
really  nullifies  the  decision  and  makes  a  distinc 
tion  between  slave  property  and  other  property. 
Thus  Douglas  brings  to  the  surface  the  dualism 
inherent  in  his  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise,  since  he  asserts  its  two  conflicting  sides, 
sovereignty  of  the  People  of  the  Territory  and 
equality  of  the  States.  Curiously  it  may  be  said 
of  Douglas  that  his  negative  was  affirmed  by  the 
Supreme  Court,  but  his  affirmative  was  negated. 
The  last  is  what  will  bring  him  into  opposition 
with  the  South  and  split  the  Democratic  party. 


PAET  I.—  THE  STRUGGLE  RENEWED.        145 

The  split  lay  already  slumbering,  though 
unborn,  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  of  Douglas 
(1854),  a  clause  of  which  declares  that  the 
people  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  should  be  left 
"  perfectly  free  to  form  and  regulate  their 
domestic  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject 
only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  /States." 
The  italicized  words  contain  the  coming  trouble. 
To  be  "subject  to  the  Constitution"  is  to  be 
subject  to  the  interpretation  of  it  by  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  might  not  permit  the  People  to 
exclude  slavery,  or  to  be  "perfectly  free  to 
form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions 
in  their  own  way."  This  was  the  pivotal  fact 
upon  which  the  Northern  Democrats  thought 
one  way  and  the  Southern  Democrats  thought 
the  opposite  way.  It  is  said  that  there  was  an 
agreement  in  caucus  between  the  two  sides  to 
leave  the  interpretation  of  the  phrase  "  subject 
to  the  Constitution  "  in  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
bill,  to  the  Supreme  Court,  which  has  now  (in 
1857)  rendered  its  decision  hostile  directly  to 
the  People's  right  of  excluding  slavery  from  the 
Territories,  and  indirectly  to  the  People's  right 
of  excluding  it  from  the  Free-States.  This 
really  annihilated  the  People  as  institution- 
maker,  the  fundamental  trait  of  the  American. 

Here  it  was  that  Douglas  missed  another  great 
opportunity,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  his  life. 
Very  distinctly  at  this  point  appears  a  bridge 

10 


146  THE  TEN  YEARS1    WAR. 

over  which  he  could  have  passed  to  the  leader 
ship  of  the  North,  and  have  carried  a  large 
portion  of  his  part}  in  the  Free-States  along 
with  him.  Many  of  his  party  soon  went  without 
him.  But  Douglas  lagged  behind  the  Sprit  of  his 
Age,  he  did  not  commune  deeply  with  the  Folk- 
Soul  of  his  Nation  and  sympathize  with  its 
aspirations.  But  now,  just  now  steps  forward 
the  man  who  is  to  take  the  place  which  he 
passes  by,  Abraham  Lincoln,  whose  form  begins 
to  rise  prominently  out  of  the  obscurity  of  his 
humble  life.  In  a  speech  at  Springfield,  Illinois 
(June  26th,  1857),  he  sets  forth  the  grounds 
and  also  the  limits  of  opposition  to  the  Dred 
Scott  decision. 

Douglas  put  himself  out  of  tune  with  his  time 
by  being  indifferent  whether  slavery  were  voted 
up  or  down  in  Kansas.  He  dwelt  upon  the  in 
feriority  of  the  negro,  with  the  implied  conclusion 
that  the  inferior  race  ought  to  be  enslaved.  This 
smote  in  the  face  the  trend  of  the  North  and  of 
the  civilized  World.  The  Judgment  of  the  Tri 
bunal  of  the  Ages  could  already  be  heard  that  the 
backward  race  was  no  longer  to  be  enslaved  by 
the  superior  race,  even  if  this  had  been  the 
method  of  the  past.  Here  again  Lincoln  far 
more  truly  represented  his  epoch. 

Such  was  the  Dred  Scott  decision  whose  first 
and  most  direct  effect  was  to  renew  the  Kansas 
struggle.  It  seemed  as  if  the  field  must  all  be 


PART  L  —  THE  STRUGGLE  RENEWED.        147 

fought  over  again,  the  people  being  suddenly 
thrown  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  conflict  in 
1855.  Though  the  method  of  attack  was 
different,  it  was  not  less  dangerous.  Yet  the 
Kansans  had  no  notion  of  giving  up  the  contest. 
The  task  which  the  World-Spirit  has  imposed 
upon  them  is  still  unfinished;  they  have  to 
vindicate  their  Free-State  against  all  the  power 
open  and  hidden,  which  slavery,  though  it  be  in 
authority,  can  summon  against  them.  Kansas 
continues  to  be  the  protagonist  of  the  new 
Union  as  producing  Free-States  only.  The 
result  is,  she  will  again  have  to  suffer. 

The  historic  process  underlying  the  occurrences 
of  this  year  (1857-8)  will,  therefore,  be  the 
same  as  before.  We  shall  again  see  the  irrita 
tion  coming  from  Washington  under  the  new 
Administration;  then  the  suffering  and  resist 
ance  of  Kansas ;  finally  the  People  of  the  North 
responding  sympathetically,  and  ruminating  upon 
the  rising  crisis. 


148  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAE. 


Washington, 

The  first  year  and  some  months  of  Buchanan's 
Administration  are  still  occupied  with  Kansas, 
whose  troubles  and  duties  do  not  end  with  the 
Presidential  election  or  with  the  Dred  Scott 
decision.  The  pro-slavery  party  centering  at 
Washington  evolves  a  new  insidious  scheme  for 
making  Kansas  a  Slave-State.  This  scheme  is 
known  as  the  Lecompton  Constitution  which  was 
to  take  the  place  of  the  Missouri  Invasion,  the 
latter  having  completely  failed  in  its  purpose.  A 
day  (June  15th,  1857)  had  been  appointed  by 
the  Territorial  Legislature  to  elect  delegates  of  a 
Convention  for  making  a  Constitution.  The 
Free-State  men  refused  to  participate  in  this  elec 
tion  on  account  of  its  unfairness  as  well  as  its 
fraudulent  source.  Pro-slavery  men  were  of 
course  chosen,  and  they  made  a  pro-slavery 
Constitution.  This  was  the  instrument  which 
was  now  to  be  employed,  particularly  at  Wash 
ington  to  destroy  the  freedom  of  Kansas. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  this  scheme  was  first 
suggested  by  the  success  of  Robinson's  anti- 
government  with  its  Topeka  Constitution.  The 
present  period  of  Kansas  history  is,  therefore, 
the  battle  of  the  two  Constitutions,  W7hich  re 
peats  in  a  new  form  the  same  old  conflict  between 


PAETI.-  WASHINGTON.  149 

the  right  which  is  formally  illegal  and  the  wrong 
which  is  formally  legal.  Somewhat  more  than  a 
year,  from  Buchanan's  beginnings  till  August 
2nd,  1858,  this  war  between  the  two  constitu 
tional  phantoms  lasted,  with  many  fluctuations. 
Finally  the  people  of  Kansas  got  the  chance  to 
vote  upon  the  Lecompton  Constitution  fairly 
and  legally,  when  they  slew  it  with  such  an 
overwhelming  majority  that  not  only  it  but  the 
whole  Kansas  strife  came  to  an  end.  And  with 
this  end  is  coupled  another  end :  Kansas  con 
cludes  her  most  important  chapter,  and  her 
events  drop  back  into  the  common  stream  of 
local  history ;  her  contributions  to  the  World's 
History  cease  in  a  decidedly  abrupt  finale. 

Washington,  the  center  of  the  country,  be 
comes  now  the  center  of  irritation  for  the  Peo 
ple  directly,  as  well  as  for  Kansas.  From  the 
national  Capitol  goes  forth  the  decision  which 
means  the  nationalization  of  slavery.  The  Folk- 
Soul  is  not  so  much  stirred  to  action  as  to  reflec 
tion;  there  is  not  the  incentive  of  a  political 
contest,  but  the  appeal  to  the  deepest  instinct 
of  human  natur6  as  well  as  to  reason.  The  po 
litical  literature  changes:  there  is  an  enormous 
distribution  of  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Judges,  as  well  as  of  the  Constitution  and  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  These  form  the 
text  of  the  speeches,  articles,  dissertations  of  the 


150  THE,   TEN  YEAK&   WAR. 

time.     Not  to  Will  but  to  Intellect  is  the  word 
now  spoken,  as  well  as  to  Feeling. 

In  consequence  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  the 
Southern  party  takes  new  hope  of  making  Kansas 
a  Slave-State.  Both  Houses  of  Congress  are 
democratic.  All  the  branches  of  the  General  Gov 
ernment,  executive,  legislative,  and  judicial  are 
in  the  one  party's  hands.  To  be  sure,  the  North 
ern  democrats,  even  the  President,  had  won 
their  places  by  holding  out  the  belief  that  Kan 
sas  would  be  a  Free-State,  in  accord  with  the 
wishes  of  its  inhabitants.  Hence  arose  an  omi 
nous  division :  the  Southerners  formed  an  inner 
circle,  a  party  to  control  the  party,  of  which 
Jefferson  Davis,  now  a  Senator  from  Mississippi, 
was  the  leading  spirit.  In  this  way  was  laid 
the  foundation  for  a  division  in  the  governing 
party,  indeed  for  several  divisions,  since  each 
divison  will  again  divide,  this  being  the  ten 
dency  during  Buchanan's  whole  administra 
tion.  In  other  words,  the  spirit  of  secession 
was  working  in  the 'Democratic  party  long  before 
actual  secession. 

It  is  now  generally  considered  that  this  inner 
circle  of  Southerners  at  Washington  became  the 
government  and  determined  its  policy,  without 
paying  much  regard  to  Buchanan.  In  fact,  it 
seems  to  have  acted  repeatedly  in  administrative 
measures  without  his  knowledge.  At  least  two 
members  of  his  Cabinet  (Cobb  and  Thompson), 


PARTI.  —  WASHINGTON.  151 

and  perhaps  more,  belonged  to  this  cabal, 
usurping  his  place  when  his  total  lack  of  will 
power  became  manifest,  and  not  even  caring  to 
inform  him  in  certain  cases  what  his  own  Ad 
ministration  had  done  or  had  resolved  to  do. 

Hence  came  the  contradictions  between  what 
Buchanan  said  and  what  the  Government  act 
ually  did  during  this  year,  especially  in  its  earlier 
portion.  The  President  repeated  again  and  again 
that  the  people  of  Kansas  should  have  a, fair 
vote  upon  the  Lecompton  Constitution ;  but  this 
was  just  what  the  Administration  bent  every 
effort  to  thwart.  The  President  was  for  Gov 
ernor  Walker,  the  Administration  was  against 
him.  Thus  the  President  and  his  Administra 
tion  moved  in  two  quite  different  spheres. 

The  relation  of  Buchanan  to  this  governing 
cabal  necessarily  fluctuated.  He  could  not  help 
finding  out  that  things  had  been  done  in  his 
name  and  by  his  authority  without  even  his  cog 
nizance.  What  would  he  do?  Submit  to  such 
proceedings  and  even  sanction  them,  or  make 
some  kind  of  a  stand?  Let  us  note  the  leading 
stages  of  his  conduct  in  regard  to  this  matter. 

1.  We  may  take  the  first  stage  to  be  when 
Buchanan  urges  Walker  to  accept  the  Governor 
ship  of  Kansas,  and  agrees  to  Walker's  condi 
tion,  namely,  an  honest  ballot  for  her  people. 
At  the  same  time  the  cabal  must  have  been  at 
work  with  the  opposite  purpose.  For  we  can- 


152  THE  TEN  YEARS1    WAR. 

not  think  that  Buchanan  was  lying  all  this  while 
and  trying  to  deceive  Walker.  Thus  the  dis 
tinction  between  the  President  as  talking  figure 
head  and  the  real  though  secret  Administration 
develops  itself,  till  the  cabal  is  ready  to  force  the 
President  to  adopt  its  policy  in  Kansas. 

2.  When  this  took  place,  or  what  were  the 
means  used,  it  is  not  easy  to  tell.  To  Forney 
Buchanan  once  said  that  the  Southerners  threat 
ened  him  with  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  unless 
he  abandoned  Walker  and  free  Kansas.  At  any 
rate  he  became  the  mouth-piece  of  the  cabal  in 
its  most  extravagant  pretensions.  Already 
before  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  December, 
1857,  it  had  been  noised  abroad  that  the  Presi 
dent  favored  the  Lecompton  scheme.  But  on 
February  2nd,  1858,  he  completed  his  act  of 
self-stultification  by  sending  the  Lecompton  Con 
stitution  to  Congress,  and  with  it  a  message  in 
which  he  declares  that  slavery  exists  in  Kansas 
as  much  as  in  South  Carolina  or  Georgia,  a  fact 
which  has  been  settled  by  "  the  highest  judicial 
tribunal  known  to  our  laws.  "  Unless  this  were 
so,  "the  equality  of  the  sovereign  States  com 
posing  the  Union  would  be  violated.  "  Further 
more  this  equality  demands  that  Kansas  be  a 
Slave-State,  since  that  will  restore  the  equilib 
rium  between  North  and  Scuth,  there  being  no\v 
one  more  Free-State  than  Slave-State.  All  of 
which  means  that  the  South  will  not  surrender 


PARTI.  ~  WASHINGTON.  153 

its  domination  over  the  Federal  Union,  even 
though  far  outstripped  by  the  North. 

But  this  act  of  Buchanan  and  the  cabal  brings 
about  the  most  important  occurrence  of  the  pe 
riod  :  the  split  in  the  Democratic  party  led  by 
Douglas.  The  division  between  South  and  North 
passing  from  Kansas  to  Washington,  cuts  in 
twain  the  very  support  of  Buchanan.  The  rup 
ture  will  not  only  last  but  increase,  determining 
the  next  Presidential  election  and  contributing 
powerfully  to  bring  on  the  Great  War. 

3.  The  Lecompton  scheme  was  defeated  in  the 
House  of  Kepresentatives  in  spite  of  the  efforts 
of  the  Administration.  But  a  final  attempt  to 
foist  it  upon  Kansas  was  made  in  a  bill  intro 
duced  by  William  E.  English,  a  Democratic 
member  of  the  House  from  Indiana.  This 
measure,  known  popularly  as  the  Bill-English  bill, 
proposed  to  submit  the  Lecompton  Constitution 
to  another  vote  of  the  people  of  Kansas;  if  they 
adopted  it,  they  were  to  receive  Statehood  at 
once  by  proclamation  of  the  President,  and  in 
addition  a  large  tract  of  government  land.  If 
they  rejected  it,  they  were  to  remain  a  Territory 
without  the  gift  of  the  land.  Such  was  the 
alluring  bribe  held  out  by  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States.  It  is  amusing  to  this  day  to  see 
with  what  indignation  Kansas  rejected  the  bribe. 


154  THE  T&N  YEARS'   WAR. 


IRansas, 

At  this  point  we  shall  pass  from  the  Center 
to  the  Border,  arid  observe  the  movement  of  the 
events  of  this  first  year  of  Buchanan,  in  which 
starts  afresh  the  old  irritation,  though  not  in 
the  old  way.  Still  the  President  at  first  seems 
to  have  cherished  a  good  intention  toward 
Kansas,  which  he  brought  from  his  Northern 
home.  He  selected  two  excellent  men  for  the 
leading  offices  —  Walker  of  Alabama  for  Gov 
ernor  and  Stunt  on  of  Tennessee  for  Secretary. 
Both  were  from  Slave-States  and  were  pro- 
slavery  in  sentiment;  it  may  be  added  that  they 
went  to  Kansas  with  the  prejudice  of  their 
section  and  their  party  against  the  Free-State 
people  of  the  Territory.  About  these  they  had 
a  great  lesson  to  learn,  and  a  still  greater  one  to 
learn  about  their  own  people. 

The  new  Governor  was  a  fair-minded  man 
and  proposed  to  secure  to  the  Territory  an 
honest  vote  of  its  inhabitants.  He  did  not  wish 
to  take  the  position;  already  he  could  count 
three  political  graves  of  Kansas  Governors  since 
1855,  not  to  speak  of  one  acting  Governor 
officially  beheaded.  It  was  an  uncanny,  grew- 
some  business  to  enter  and  govern  in  such  a 
gubernatorial  graveyard.  Nor  did  his  wife  want 


PAR  TL  —  KANSAS.  155 

him  to  go.  But  his  and  her  scruples  were 
finally  overcome  through  the  personal  inter 
cession  of  both  Buchanan  and  Douglas. 

1.  Walker  reached  Kansas  May  26th,  1857. 
He  saw  a  large  emigration  pouring  in  from  the 
Free  States,  each  man  both  a  settler  and  a 
fighter.  But  he  saw  few,  if  any  slave-holders 
coming  with  their  slaves  into  the  Territory;  not 
two  hundred  slaves  could  be  counted.  Quite  a 
number  of  non-slave-holding  Southerners  were 
arriving,  but  they  had  a  pronounced  tendency  to 
turn  Free-State  men,  since  not  a  few  of  them 
had  left  the  South  because  of  slavery.  Most  of 
these  men  were  Democrats,  and  they  formed  a 
decided  majority  of  their  party  in  the  Terri 
tory.  Walker,  looking  over  the  situation,  esti 
mated  the  Free-State  Democrats  at  9,000,  the 
Kepublicans  at  8,000,  pro-slavery  Democrats  at 
6500,  pro-slavery  Know-Nothings  at  500  — 
17,000  Free-State  men  to  7,000  on  the  other  side. 

This  settled  the  future  of  Kansas  in  Walker's 
opinion:  it  would  be  a  Free-State.  Equally  cer 
tain  was  the  fact  that  it  was  decidedly  democratic. 
Walker,  as  partisan,  sought  to  reconcile  the  two 
Democratic  factions  on  the  basis  of  a  Free-State 
policy.  Herein  is  the  point  at  which  he  began 
to  collide  with  the  inner  circle  at  Washington, 
who  cared  nothing  for  the  Democratic  party  ex 
cept  as  a  tool  of  slavery. 

A  scheme  for  a  constitutional  convention  had 


156  THE  TEN  TEAKS'  WAR. 

been  framed  by  the  preceding  territorial  legisla 
ture.  The  election  (already  alluded  to)  took  place 
June  15th  but  was  shunned  by  the  Free-State  men, 
less  than  one-fourth  of  the  registered  voters  par 
ticipated.  The  result  was  the  Lecompton  Con 
vention  with  its  Constitution.  Thus  Kansas  had 
two  Constitutions  before  it,  the  Topeka  and  the 
Lecompton.  From  now  on  we  witness  the  strife 
of  the  Constitutions.  Again  the  old  trouble  ap 
pears  :  the  one  had  the  formal  right,  the  legality, 
while  the  other  had  the  People  with  it,  but  was 
informal,  even  illegal.  Kansas  seems  unable  to 
get  out  of  that  ever-recurring  see-saw  between 
the  right  which  is  unlawful  and  the  wrong  which 

o  o 

is  lawful.  Indeed  we  may  say  that  this  is  the 
conflict  going  on  throughout  the  whole  nation. 
It  was  the  spiritual  conflict  brought  to  conscious 
ness  with  the  keenest  intensity  by  the  Dred 
Scott  decision;  slavery  is  legal  but  wrong,  anti- 
slavery  is  illegal  but  right.  Which  principle  is 
to  be  obeyed:  Conscience  or  the  Constitution? 
Which  shall  rule  the  man,  the  moral  or  the  insti 
tutional?  Both  ought  to  rule  him,  each  in  its 
sphere  harmoniously  guiding  him.  Yet  they 
have  become  not  only  discordant  but  bitterly 
antagonistic,  and  refuse  to  co-operate  making 
every  man's  soul  the  arena  of  strife. 

The  Invasion  of  Missourians  being  at  an  end, 
the  inner  circle  at  Washington  saw  a  way  of 
using  the  Lecompton  Convention  with  its  Con- 


PA  K  TI.  —  KANSA  S.  157 

stitution  as  the  chief  means  in  a  new  campaign 
for  Southern  domination.  It  was  known  that  if 
this  Constitution  were  submitted  to  the  People, 
it  would  be  rejected  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 
Hence  it  was  not  submitted  as  a  whole.  Still 
the  voter  had  the  alternative  of  declaring,  "  with  " 
or  "  without  slavery."  But  the  Constitution 
"  without  slavery  "  had  in  it  the  following  state 
ment:  the  property  in  slaves  is  as  inviolable  as 
any  other  kind  of  property,  and  the  owner  of 
slaves  has  the  same  right  to  them  everywhere  and 
of  course  in  Kansas.  Again  the  Free-State  men 
abstained  from  voting  (Dec.  21).  The  Consti 
tution  with  Slavery  carried  by  6,226,  of  which 
nearly  one-half  were  shown  to  be  fraudulent. 
Meanwhile  the  Free-State  men  succeeded  in  get 
ting  another  ballot  upon  the  Constitution  as  a 
whole  (Jan.  4,  1858)  when  more  than  ten  thou 
sand  votes  were  cast  against  the  Lecomptou  instru 
ment.  Both  elections  were  investigated,  and  the 
investigation  brought  out  even  more  emphatically 
the  overwhelming  sentiment  of  the  Territory 
against  slavery.  Of  course  this  second  ballot 
completely  thwarted  the  inner  circle  at  Washing 
ton,  and  brought  about  the  removal  of  acting- 
Governor  Stanton  who  had  permitted  it  to  take 
place.  This  act  of  Stanton' s,  with  what  led  up 
to  it,  forms  the  turning-point  in  the  destiny  of 
Kansas,  and  deserves  special  consideration. 
2.  Many  a  sign  indicates  that  we  have  come 


158  THE  TEN  YEAES}   WAR. 

to  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  this  Kansas  con 
flict.  Its  character  has  been  often  noted:  the 
forms  of  Law  have  been  seized  by  the  pro- 
slavery  party,  and  employed  to  put  down  the 
Will  of  the  People.  Thus  the  conflict  has  been 
concisely  stated  as  that  between  the  right  which 
was  illegal  and  the  wrong  which  was  legal, 
each  side  taking  shape  in  a  ruling  power. 
Hence  a  double  authority  arose  in  Kansas,  which 
we  have  described  as  the  government  and  the 
anti-government,  or  more  fully,  as  the  real  gov 
ernment  which  is  the  phantom,  and  the  phantom 
government  which  is  the  reality.  Between 
these  two  shapes  has  been  the  struggle, 
hitherto  without  victory  on  either  side;  the  real 
government  has  never  been  able  to  get  hold  of 
its  phantom  which  is  indeed  its  spirit,  and  the 
phantom  government  has  never  been  abl&  to 
make  itself  real,  to  clothe  itself  with  the  forms 
of  Law,  which  have  been  persistently  purloined 
by  the  ot'her  side.  Thus  the  Free-State  men 
have  been  compelled  to  see  and  to  follow  and  to 
be  governed  by  a  Spirit  without  any  Body,  which 
Spirit  the  Slave-State  men  have  pursued  and 
fought,  seeking  to  run  it  through  or  shoot  it  or 
take  it  prisoner,  all  to  no  purpose.  Each  is 
rightly  the  counterpart  of  the  other,  and  both 
belong  together ;  but  each  as  if  bewitched,  rejects 
the  other  with  scorn,  yea  with  downright  battle, 


PARTI.  —  KANSAS.  159 

and  so  they  remain  not  only  separated  but  com 
pletely  alienated  and  combatting  each  other. 

Into  this  struggle,  however,  a  change  is  now 
to  come  through  two  acts  of  the  United  States 
officials.  October  5th,  1857,  a  new  Territorial 
Legislature  was  to  be  elected  to  succeed  that  old 
one  elected  two  years  before  by  the  Missouri 
invaders.  The  Free-State  men  were  persuaded 
to  take  part  in  it  by  Governor  Walker,  who 
promised  a  fair  election,  and  who  honestly 
fulfilled  his  promise  by  rejecting  two  gross 
frauds  perpetrated  by  the  pro-slavery  party. 
The  result  was  a  Territorial  Legislature  with  a 
decided  majority  of  Free-State  men  who  were 
now  legally  chosen,  and  who  held  their  certifi 
cates  of  election  from  the  constituted  authorities. 
Thus  the  Missouri-elected  Legislature  vanishes 
with  its  mere  legal  form,  and  the  Will  of  the 
People  has  at  last  gotten  its  body  in  the  Law. 
Is  it  not  plain  that  Eight,  so  long  flitting 
about  bodiless  like  an  unhappy  ghost  on  the 
plains  of  Kansas,  has  reached  its  first  stage  of 
legal  incarnation? 

The  jubilant  Kansan  may  now  have  a  wedding 
celebration  of  that  shadowy  pair,  so  necessary 
to  each  other,  yet  so  long  separated  and  mutually 
combative.  That  primal  dualism,  product  of 
the  first  invasion  of  the  Missourians  more  than 
two  years  since,  and  cause  of  so  much  trouble, 
is  overcome,  and  the  two  warring  counterparts, 


160  THE   TEX  YEARS'    WAR. 

original  Right  and  formal  Legality,  have  rushed 
together  in  hearty  embrace,  and  are  actually 
married,  henceforth  to  remain  harmonious  and 
inseparable  after  their  long  trial.  So  let  Kansas 
celebrate  in  speeches,  sermons,  and  in  immeas 
urable  talk,  for  surely  a  new  dawn  has  appeared. 

But  the  second  instance  is  in  several  respects, 
though  not  in  all,  more  decisive,  showing  an 
honest  ballot  upon  the  Lecompton  Constitution 
under  the  sanction  of  established  authority,  both 
National  and  Territorial.  Governor  Walker, 
having  gone  to  Washington  on  leave  of  absence, 
the  acting-Governor,  Stanton,  at  the  urgent  re 
quest  of  the  People  coming  to  him  "  in  great 
masses,"  convoked  the  Territorial  Legislature 
now  having  a  majority  of  Free-State  men,  for 
the  purpose  of  appointing  an  election  day  on 
which  Kansas  might  fairly  express  by  ballot  her 
opinion  about  the  Lecompton  Constitution. 
January  4th,  1858,  was  the  day  appointed, 
when,  in  exact  figures  10,226  votes  were  cast 
against  that  instrument  absolutely,  138  for  it 
with  slavery,  24  for  it  without  slavery.  Such 
was  the  emphatic,  indeed  passionate,  rejection 
of  the  Lecompton  Constitution  by  the  irate 
People. 

Thus  two  ballots  had  been  held  upon  it,  just 
a  fortnight  apart,  the  one  being  a  fraud,  a  phan 
tom  again,  the  other  being  real  and  now  legal. 
Still,  at  Washington  the  inner  circle  of  the  Oli- 


PARTI.  —  KANSAS.  161 

garchy,  wielding  the  power  of  the  Administration, 
bolsters  the  fraud  with  its  power,  claiming  still 
Legality,  which,  it  says,  is  derived  from  its  au 
thority  alone.  So  Legality  itself  gets  divided 
in  this  Kansas  strife ;  two  Legalities  appear  and 
start  to  fighting.  Hitherto  we  have  seen  the 
struggle  between  the  Spirit  and  the  Form,  which 
twain  ought  to  be  one  assuredly.  But  behold ! 
Now  the  Form  separates  within  itself  and  be 
comes  twofold,  one  set  of  legal  Forms  uniting 
with  the  Spirit,  the  Eight,  the  other  set  remain 
ing  apart  and  hostile.  The  two  legal  Forms,  or 
Legalities,  are  now  named  Lecompton  and  anti- 
Lecompton,  the  one  upheld  by  authority  in 
Washington,  the  other  by  authority  in  Kansas, 
which  has  thus  taken  another  great  step  toward 
getting  her  ideal  right  made  real,  toward  legal 
izing  the  spirit  of  her  people.  Still  the  tran 
sition  is  not  yet  quite  co.mplete  till  that  new  Le 
compton  phantom  be  banned  from  the  Territory. 
But  now  for  a  serious  counterstroke.  The 
acting-Governor,  Stanton,  who  had  granted  to 
the  People  of  Kansas  the  foregoing  opportunity 
for  self-expression  through  a  fair  ballot,  was  at 
once  removed  because  he  had  thwarted  the 
Washington  cabal.  The  Lecompton  Constitution 
was  to  have  full  sweep  of  legality,  both  national 
and  territorial ;  but  here  rises,  through  the  act 
of  Stanton,  an  anti-Lecompton  legality  con 
founding  the  whole  pro-slavery  program.  He 

11 


i62  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

lias  honestly  tried  to  transform  legality  from  a 
phantom  into  a  reality,  but  in  the  process  it  has 
transformed  him  from  a  reality  into  a  phantom, 
so  that  he  too  is  thrust  down  into  the  Hades  of 
disembodied  Kansas  Governors,  now  getting 
pretty  crowded.  And  there  are  more  to  come. 
Governor  Walker,  being  at  Washington  on  busi 
ness,  learns  of  Stanton's  fate,  and  recognizing  it 
to  be  his  own,  resolves  to  follow  him  at  once 
below.  He  sends  in  his  resignation,  seeing 
that  the  pledge  under  which  he  had  accepted  the 
office,  had  been  violated,  and  that  Buchanan  had 
completely  succumbed  to  the  cabal  which  had 
determined  to  force  the  Lecoinpton  Constitution 
upon  the  people  of  Kansas.  Though  both 
Stanton  and  Walker  were  pro-slavery  in  con 
viction  and  from  Slave-States,  yet  they  were 
honest  men  and  good  Americans,  who  could  not 
be  driven  or  cajoled  into  assailing  the  primordial 
right  of  the  People  to  self-government.  Peace  be 
to  their  ghosts. 

Strangely  unique  and  thought-provoking  is  the 
appearance  of  this  fleeting,  spectral  procession  of 
Kansas  Governors  and  acting-Governors,  no  less 
than  six  in  three  years,  rising  and  vanishing  so 
rapidly  and  so  insubstantially  before  our  eyes. 
What  can  be  the  matter?  All  were  caught  in 
that  everlasting  Kansas  mill  now  running  at  high 
speexl,  and  were  ground  between  its  upper  and 
nether  mill-stones,  between  the  legal  which  is  not 


PAE  T  I.  —  KA  NSAS.  163 

right  and  the  right  which  is  not  legal.  Honest 
men  they  were,  even  if  appointees  of  slavery,  who 
came  with  a  deep-seated  delusion,  very  natural 
and  true  elsewhere,  that  legality  is  or  ought  to  be 
also  right  and  that  illegality  is  or  ought  to  be 
wrong.  But  they  soon  find  that  just  the  opposite 
is  the  peculiar  case  of  Kansas,  and,  being  honest, 
they  at  once  start  to  rectify  the  difficulty,  seek 
ing  to  unite  legality  with  right,  harmonizing  it 
with  the  Will  of  the  People,  its  true  source,  and 
thus  making  it  real.  But  that  would  undo  the 
Slave-State  cause  which  they,  as  Democratic 
appointees  and  Southerners,  were  sent  out  to 
uphold,  but  which  rested  upon  just  that  phantom 
legality  which  they  tried  to  put  down.  This 
phantom,  however,  being  intrenched  at  Wash 
ington,  is  mightier  than  they  are,  and  in  the 
struggle  puts  them  down.  Thus  the  phantom, 
instead  of  being  banned  by  the  Governors,  bans 
them,  turning  them  into  phantoms  from  actual 
living  magistrates.  For  the  Democratic  Gover 
nor  of  Kansas  must  be  governed  by  the  phantom, 
and  not  try  to  govern  it,  which  is  gotten  up  at 
Washington  and  is  manipulated  thence  in  the  in 
terest  of  Slave-Stateism.  If  he  dares  disobey  its 
behest,  it  will  turn  upon  him  and  change  him  to 
a  phantom,  harrying  him  out  of  Kansas  in  a 
hurry.  So  it  comes  that  every  Kansas  Gover 
nor,  with  the  exception  of  Woodson,  has  perished 
in  a  fight  with  formal  legality,  which,  though 


164  TlIK  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

a  ghost,  has  shown  the  power  of  making  him  a 
ghost,  and  hunting  him  out  of  his  official  exist 
ence.  And  it  may  also  be  said  of  Woodson  that 
he  perished  through  a  ghost,  but  this  belonged 
to  the  other  side,  being  a  Free-State  ghost, 
namely  Robinson's  anti-government,  which  we 
have  already  often  seen  as  a  phantom  bodiless, 
but  very  real  and  man-compelling. 

Such  was  the  uncanny  line  of  gubernatorial 
ghosts  which  stalked  forth  on  the  plains  of 
Kansas  to  meet  the  incoming  Governor  just 
appointed  by  Buchanan.  How  this  new  Gov 
ernor,  Denver  by  name,  received  their  saluta 
tion,  is  not  recorded;  but  he  could  hardly  help, 
though  a  brave  man,  feeling  his  flesh  crawl 
during  his  journey  through  such  a  fresh-made 
grave-yard  of  his  predecessors,  and  entertaining 
religious  reflections  on  the  transitoriness  of 
earthly  glory.  But  this  is  not  all.  He  could 
likewise  hear  the  strident  cry  of  the  counter - 
ghost,  that  phantom  Legality,  which  had  made 
ghosts  of  all  these  Governors,  and  which  was 
defiantly  shouting  in  his  ear  the  words  of  Ham 
let:  "  Unhand  me,  or  by  Heaven  I'll  make  a 
ghost  of  him  that  lets  me."  So  insolent  had 
it  become  in  view  of  its  success  in  Kansas,  but 
just  this  insolence  prognosticates  its  approaching 
end.  Mere  Legality  has  had  its  ghostly  day, 
and  must  be  laid;  the  unholy  strife  between  the 
law  which  is  not  justice  and  the  justice  which 


PAR  TL—  KANSAS.  1 65 

is  not  law,  is  what  must  next  be  overcome.  Law 
and  Justice  are  not  only  to  cease  being  enemies, 
but  are  actually  going  to  get  united  again,  and 
the  reader,  happy  at  the  prospect,  we  hope,  will 
be  invited  to  attend  the  re-union,  the  first  one 
of  the  kind  in  Kansas. 

3.  Accordingly  we  now  come  to  what  must  be 
considered  the  final  act  of  the  Kansas  struggle. 
Already  we  have  noticed  at  Washington  the  last 
scheme  of  the  Administration  known  as  the 
English  bill,  which  in  substance  offered  a  bribe 
of  land  to  Kansas  if  she  would  accept  the 
Lecompton  Constitution.  This  bill,  after  con 
siderable  diificulty,  was  gotten  through  Congress, 
and  was  presented  to  the  voters  of  Kansas  for 
adoption  or  rejection.  The  interesting  point 
here  is  that  the  ballot  was  to  be  both  fair  and 
legal,  under  the  auspices  of  Congress,  and  even 
of  the  Administration  which  now  for  the  first 
time  drops  its  phantom  legality,  employed  by  it 
for  more  than  three  years,  and  accepts  as  legal 
the  fairly  expressed  will  of  the  People. 
Certainly  this  looks  as  if  we  were  getting  to  the 
end  of  the  long  Kansas  see-saw  already  so  often 
discribed. 

But  what  will  Miss  Kansas  do,  the  refractory 
Western  beauty?  She  gathers  up  her  skirts  and 
turns  haughtily  from  such  a  debasing  proposition  ; 
with  scorn  on  her  nostrils  and  vengeance  in  her 
eyes  she  flings  the  Bill-English  bill  from  her 


166  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

with  a  hurricane  of  votes  (vota,  here  vows  of 
execration),  summing  %up  more  than  11,000 
(exactly  11,300  out  of  13,088).  Such  was  her 
defiant  and  wrathful  answer  to  all  Washington, 
both  Congress  and  Administration,  for  trying  to 
buy  off  her  honor.  That  was  the  end  of  their 
trifling  with  what  she  deemed  her  sacred  virtue, 
in  defense  of  which  she  gives  them  this  slap 
which  resounds  through  the  whole  land  on  that 
summer-day  (August  2nd). 

Congress  makes  a  sorry  sight  of  itself  in  this 
business,  the  only  redeeming  circumstance  being 
that  it  gives  to  Kansas  the  first  real  opportunity 
for  self-expression.  And  she  certainly  took 
advantage  of  the  opportunity  to  speak  her  mind. 
Possibly  some  members  supported  the  bill  for 
this  reason.  The  majority  of  them  must  have 
admired  her  indignation  at  their  proposal,  when 
the  affair  was  over.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
many  a  chivalrous  gentleman  of  the  South  in 
Congress  secretly  applauded  the  act  of  Kansas, 
even  if  he  voted  for  the  English  measure  under 
the  supposed  exigency  of  party.  Senator  Ham 
mond  declared  publicly  at  home  in  South  Caro 
lina  that  in  his  opinion  "the  South  herself 
should  kick  that  Constitution  (Lecompton)  out 
of  Congress,"  and  not  leave  the  kicking  to  Kan- 
KIS,  and  still  less  attempt  to  bribe  her  not  to 
kick. 

The  act  of  Kansas  in  this  matter  was  received 


PART  I.  —  KAN'S  AS.  167 

by  the  North  not  only  with  a  mighty  shout  of 
applause,  but  with  infinite  amusement,  yea  mer 
riment.  The  Folk-Soul  itself  had  to  laugh  at 
that  stinging  but  well-deserved  slap  in  the  face 
from  the  irate  maiden.  From  every  village  and 
farm-house,  from  man  and  woman,  rose  great 
roars  or  little  cachinnations  of  delight,  which, 
being  taken  up  and  reverberated  by  that  long 
line  of  sounding-boards,  large  and  small,  from 
the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  caused  such  a  univer 
sal  and  overwhelming  guffaw  that  the  whole 
People  rolled  and  shook  in  it  as  in  an  earthquake. 
Nor  did  it  stop  at  once,  for  with  that  peculiar 
power  of  reproducing  itself  again  and  again 
which  lurks  in  the  laugh  of  the  crowd,  it  would 
come  back  in  repeated  paroxysms  and  start 
afresh.  Barely  has  there  been  on  this  planet 
such  a  colossal  fit  of  merriment,  surely  not  since 
ancient  Homer  set  all  the  Gods  on  Olympus,  and 
with  them,  we  must  suppose,  the  whole  Universe, 
to  laughing,  from  which  divine  source  has  rolled 
down  to  the  present  in  great  undulations  through 
the  intervening  ages  the  Homeric  laugh,  most 
famous  thing  of  the  kind  and  still  contagious 
from  the  poet's  song.  Thus  the  American 
Demos  in  its  vast  theater  bounded  by  two  Oceans, 
and  over-canopied  by  the  blue  Heavens  for  three 
thousand  miles  and  more,  split  its  sides  at  the 
representation  of  a  national  comedy,  quite  as 
that  old  Athenian  Demos  in  its  little  walled-up 


168  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

theater  on  the  slope  of  the  Acropolis  roared  like 
the  little  sea  at  its  feet  in  response  to  the  comic 
Muse  of  Aristophanes  holding  up  its  own  picture 
to  itself. 

But  the  pivotal  fact  now  is  that  the  long  tribu 
lation  of  Kansas,  threatening  for  years  to 
become  a  tragedy,  has  reached  its  end  in  what 
may  be  called  a  national  comedy  with  inextin 
guishable  laughter.  Thus  the  conclusion  of  the 
drama,  after  many  a  sorrowful  stroke  and  hope 
long  deferred,  may  be  deemed  happy,  and  the 
American  People  can  turn  to  something  else,  for 
a  mightier  problem  than  the  Kansas  one  has 
come  up  before  them  for  solution. 


PARTI.  —  THE  PEOPLE.  169 


people, 

After  this  comic  interlude,  the  People  turn 
back  into  their  serious  vein,  which  always  at  the 
present  time  springs  from  some  phase  of  the 
slavery  question.  The  subject  becomes  intoler 
ably  wearisome  on  account  of  its  never-failing 
presence  in  talk  and  writ ;  but  it  cannot  be  ban 
ished,  cannot  be  crushed  out,  being  the  very 
theme  and  thought  of  the  Folk-Soul  in  which 
every  individual  of  the  land  participates.  The 
impress  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Age  cannot  be  wiped 
out  of  the  brain  of  any  rational  man  at  will ; 
there  is  no  flight  from  the  task  of  the  time  with 
out  a  self -undoing. 

1.  In  Kansas  the  moral  element  arose  and  was 
active,  but  it  did  not  there  reach  its  deepest 
tension.  Her  people  had  before  them  the  prob 
lem  of  making  Kansas,  this  particular  Territory, 
a  Free-State ;  beyond  such  immediate  end  the 
majority  of  them,  being  Douglas  Democrats,  and 
believing  in  Popular  Sovereignty,  hardly  looked. 
But  when  the  Kansas  question  passed  outside  the 
limits  of  Kansas  and  entered  the  Northern  States, 
it  deepened  to  the  thought  of  making  all  the 
Territories  into  Free-States.  There  was  no 
reason  why  Kansas  should  be  an  exception;  in 
fact,  it  was  only  a  special  instance  of  the  general 


170  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

principle  of  Free-Stateism,  which  had  now  be 
come  conscious  in  the  mind  of  the  People.  Such, 
indeed,  was  the  chief  fruit  of  the  training  which 
the  North  underwent  through  the  grand  Kansas 
discipline. 

The  doctrine  of  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from 
the  Territories  had  already  been  enounced  in  the 
platform  of  the  Republican  party  in  1856.  The 
Dred  Scott  decision,  however,  declared  the  doc 
trine  unconstitutional,  and  thus  started  a  new 
and  deeper  questioning  in  the  Folk-Soul  of  the 
North.  What  shall  we  do  with  our  palladium 
of  liberty,  the  Constitution,  which  we  have  so 
long  loved  and  adored,  if  it  makes  slavery  uni 
versal —  not  only  nationalizes  it  but  universal 
izes  it,  compelling  the  Union  to  be  productive 
of  Slave-States  only?  In  some  way  that  deci 
sion  must  be  reversed  —  but  in  what  way?  That 
is  indeed  the  problem  which  time  is  to  solve,  and 
toward  this  solution  the  movement  now  starts. 
Slavery  is  declared  to  be  the  universal  law  of  the 
land,  all  enactments  and  constitutions  of  the 
single  States  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding; 
Judge  Taney  has  made  the  law,  usurping  or  at 
least  supplanting  the  legislative  function.  This 
drives  mightly  against  the  moral  conviction  of 
the  North ;  the  result  is  the  conflict  between  the 
moral  and  the  institutional  in  man,  a  conflict 
deeper  and  more  desperate  in  its  outcome  than 
that  of  Kansas. 


PARTI.  —  THE  PEOPLE.  171 

2.  After  these  abstract  statements,  it  will  be 
well  to  glance  at  the  great  leaders  of  this  rising 
movement,  who  are  also  aspirants  for  the  Chief 
Magistracy  of  the  Nation.  In  whom  does  the 
Crowing  conviction  of  the  Northern  Folk-Soul 

O  o 

most  adequately  incorporate  itself?  Now  is 
the  time  for  the  hero  to  appear. 

It  is  to  be  marked  that  Douglas  voted  against 
the  English  bill  with  the  Republicans.  He  was 
now  at  the  nearest  point  of  his  sweep  toward 
Republicanism,  in  the  middle  of  the  bridge,  as  it 
were.  He  had  quit  defending  the  formal  wrong, 
though  he  had  not  yet  asserted  the  informal  right. 
Will  he  go  over?  Both  sides  watched  him  with 
most  intense  interest.  The  inner  circle  of  the 
South  had  come  to  hate  him  worse  than  they  did 
Seward ;  he  had  divided  their  party  and  threat 
ened  their  domination.  Certain  Republicans 
were  getting  their  throats  ready  to  hail  him  as  a 
leader.  Some  New  York  newspapers  began  to 
forecast  the  new  party,  accepting  his  Popular  Sov 
ereignty  and  reverberating  his  name  through  the 
land  as  the  coming  Northern  candidate  for  Presi 
dent  in  1860.  But  he  still  has  a  little  stretch  of 
bridge  to  cross  before  he  can  reach  the  Repub 
lican  hosts.  Will  he  stop,  turn  back,  or  go  on? 

It  is  evident  that  Seward  felt  his  chances  for 
the  coming  prize  to  be  jeoparded.  He  began  to 
separate  from  his  associates  in  the  Senate,  and 
voted  against  them  on  the  Army  bill  and  with  the 


172  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. 

Administration,  saying  "I  care  nothing  for 
party."  He  gave  as  his  reason  for  his  vote: 
this  battle  is  already  fought;  it  is  over.  "  We 
are  fighting  for  a  majority  of  Free  States;  they 
are  already  sixteen  to  fifteen,  and  before  one  year 
we  shall  be  nineteen  to  fifteen."  Here  we  catch 
a  glimpse  of  Seward's  view  of  the  conflict: 
Which  side  shall  dominate  the  Nation?  So  also 
the  South  conceived  it.  Seward  likewise  spoke 
favorably  of  Popular  Sovereignty  in  his  speech 
on  the  Lecompton  affair.  Clearly  he  is  leading 
off  somewhither;  what  is  his  motive?  Certainly 
a  breach  is  threatening  the  Eepublican  party  as 
well  as  the  Democratic. 

Both  Douglas  and  Seward  seem  to  be  breaking 
from  their  old  connections,  and  to  be  forming  an 
independent  following  of  their  own.  Could 
Seward  be  seeking  to  ingratiate  himself  with  the 
Administration  which  so  hated  Douglas?  There 
was  maneuvering  between  these  two  astute  politic 
ians  for  the  right  position,  which  might  be  the 
key  to  1860.  But  Douglas  had  a  nearer  motive: 
the  election  of  an  Illinois  legislature  this  very  fall 
(1858)  to  return  him  to  the  Senate.  Illinois  had 
shown  a  tendency  recently  to  go  Republican. 
His  success  was  doubtful  without  Republican  sup 
port.  He  had  already  won  influential  Republican 
newspapers  and  politicians  in  the  East  to  favor 
his  re-election  to  the  Senatorship. 

Seward  called  Douglas  slippery,  but  .Seward 


PARTI.  —  THE  PEOPLE.  173 

was  open  to  the  same  charge.  Both  were  patriots 
at  bottom,  yet  both  were  politicians,  deeply  versed 
in  what  is  often  called  practical  politics.  Prob 
ably  neither  was  personally  corrupt  in  the  use 
of  money,  but  they  had  friends  who  were  not  so 
tender-conscienced,  and  at  whose  doings  they 
connived.  Both  changed,  shifted  positions,  and 
readjusted  themselves  to  catch  the  direction  of 
the  popular  breeze.  Some  excuse  may  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  their  time  was  a  time  of  transi 
tion  and  of  dissolution  of  parties,  when  every 
body  had  to  make  a  new  alignment.  Neither  of 
them  was  a  rigid  moralist  as  to  political  means ; 
both  would  probably  say  with  Cassius :  "In  such 
a  time  as  this  it  is  not  meet  that  every  nice 
offense  should  bear  his  comment." 

At  this  point  when  both  parties  and  both  their 
chief  leaders  seem  to  be  balancing  in  a  kind  of 
equilibrium  uncertain  of  their  way,  the  man  of 
destiny,  Abraham  Lincoln,  appears  and  is  soon 
to  overtop  both  Douglas  and  Seward.  Here  we 
may  emphasize  by  contrast  his  straightforward 
ness,  which  the  popular  mind  caught  up  first  of 
all,  giving  to  him  the  title  of  Honest  Abe,  which 
title  men  never  gave  to  Seward  or  Douglas, 
though  they  were  not  dishonest  men,  and  though 
Lincoln  too  had  his  secrecies  and  subtleties. 

The  first  struggle  of  the  new  issue  before  the 
People  is  to  take  place  in  the  West  on  the  soil  of 
Illinois  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas,  the  two 


174  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

ablest  public  men  of  the  State.  We  may  see 
Lincoln  advancing  to  the  keystone  of  the  bridge 
where  Douglas  is  standing  and  hesitating,  stop 
his  further  advance,  and  indeed  turn  him 
around.  For  the  two  men  and  their  doctrines 
are  quite  different,  and  soon  get  to  be  opposite. 
Kansas  may  (or  may  not)  become  a  Free-State 
through  the  doctrine  of  Douglas,  but  it  must  be 
a  Free-State  through  the  doctrine  of  Lincoln  — 
and  not  only  Kansas  but  all  the  Territories. 
(See  speeches  of  Lincoln,  at  Springfield,  June 
16,  and  at  Chicago,  July  10,  1858.) 

At  this  point  the  world-historical  career  of 
Lincoln  starts,  and  never  drops  from  its  lofty 
position  until  after  his  death ;  in  fact  it  moves 
on  an  ascending  plane  from  his  first  leap  into 
the  arena  with  Douglas  till  its  sudden  conclu 
sion  when  it  had  reached  its  highest  mark. 
Lincoln  bids  fair  to  become  the  most  interesting 
character  in  all  History  to  the  People.  He  knew 
the  Folk-Soul  by  long  study  and  intimate  ac 
quaintance,  he  went  to  school  to  it  during  his 
earlier  years;  then  he  became  its  voice,  its  ex 
pounder  to  itself,  whereby  it  grew  conscious  of 
its  supreme  purpose;  finally  it  went  to  school  to 
him  as  master,  who  brought  to  it  a  still  higher 
message  than  its  own. 

3.  We  may  also  add,  by  way  of  contrast, 
that  about  this  time  the  world-historical  career 
of  Kansas  comes  to  a  close,  having  enacted  her 


PARTI.  —  THE  PEOPLE.  175 

final  scene  in  the  rejection  of  the  Lecompton 
Constitution.  To  be  sure  she  wilt  continue  to 
have  her  local  history,  and  a  good  deal  of  it, 
bloodier  than  at  first ;  but  it  is  not  of  universal 
import,  it  can  no  longer  be  recorded  in  the 
Book  of  the  Ages,  the  great  Presence  leaves 
her  when  her  unflinching  grapple  with  slavery 
is  over.  Never  since  has  she  attracted  so 
much  attention,  though  she  has  sought  to  do 
so,  nature  even  helping  her  to  specks  of  tran 
sient  fame  by  drouths,  grasshoppers,  and 
cyclones.  Struggle  has  indeed  continued  in  a 
small  way,  political  fights,  temperance  crusades, 
and  pitched  battles  over  county-seats ;  but 
the  stake  has  not  been  large,  being  local, 
not  even  national,  still  less  has  it  been  world- 
historical.  Desperate  have  been  the  efforts  of 
Kansas  to  keep  herself  great ;  but  that  has  been 
shown  to  be  beyond  her  power.  Over  her  birth 
the  World-Spirit  presided,  coming  of  its  own  ac 
cord  and  staying  three  years,  as  a  kind  of  super 
nal  god-mother;  then  the  task  being  fulfilled, 
it  passed  elsewhither  on  its  errand,  and  seem 
ingly  has  never  revisited  its  god-child  up  to  date, 
almost  half  a  century  having  now  elapsed. 

But  whither  has  it  gone?  We  shall  find  it 
again,  that  being  just  the  function  of  the  World's 
History  to  follow  it  up,  to  trace  its  presence, 
and  to  record  its  doings.  It  is  not  going  to  leave 
the  country ;  its  hand  must  be  seen  directing  the 


176  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR. 

movement  of  the  whole  Ten  Years'  War.  It 
takes  possession  of  individuals  and  inspires  whole 
peoples;  primarily  it  impresses  itself  upon  the 
Folk-Soul,  and  impels  the  same  to  realize  its  far- 
reaching  designs.  But  it  is  now  done  with 
Kansas,  and  so  is  completed  the  First  Part  of 
our  American  Iliad. 


PAR  TL  —HE  TEOSPEC  T.  177 


IRetrospect* 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  a  peculiar  force  or 
energy  lies  in  the  early  Kansas  conflict  just 
described;  what  is  its  nature?  Can  we  catch  the 
power  which  seems  to  be  lurking  and  working  in 
these  tumultuous  occurrences,  hold  it  fast  and 
give  to  it  some  kind  of  a  shape?  Here  is  indeed 
a  tangled  skein  of  events  out  of  which  the  his 
toric  process  must  be  evolved  and  formulated. 
And  not  only  one  but  many  of  these  processes 
must  be  seen  unfolding,  conflicting,  and  then 
intertwining  into  a  supreme  process  which  unites 
them  all.  Thus  what  may  be  called  the  historic 
organism  rises  into  vision,  defining  itself  in 
certain  distinct  outlines. 

1.  The  reader  will  probably  have  observed 
already  that  we  are  not  trying  to  write  an  ordi 
nary  historical  account  of  matters  cotemporane- 
ous  in  place  and  successive  in  time,  simply  set 
ting  them  down  in  their  external  order.  Un 
doubtedly,  the  facts  must  be  given,  and  given 
with  exactness,  but  these  spring  up  more  or  less 
separated,  disconnected,  whereas  the  mind  must 
have  connection.  Hence  we  seek  for  the  Process 
running  through  and  interlinking  these  events 
which  are  in  appearance  consecutive  merely,  but 
really  are  rounding  themselves  out  into  a  cycle 

12 


178  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR. 

or  indeed  many  cycles  self-returning  while  going 
forward.  Primarily  historic  happenings  are  suc 
cessive  in  time,  but  secondarily  they  are  moving 
in  a  Process  also,  which  Process  clothes  itself  in 
the  ever-flowing  folds  of  these  on-sweeping 
events. 

But  this  historic  Process  of  happenings  in  time 
is  by  no  means  the  end  of  the  matter;  it  has  a 
deeper  purpose  than  itself,  it  reaches  out  beyond 
its  own  immediate  reality,  and  has  as  its  object 
the  training  of  the  People,  of  the  associated 
Whole,  into  the  new  idea  or  conviction.  We 
have  often  dwelt  upon  the  historic  Process 
starting  from  Washington,  passing  to  Kansas  and 
thence  impressing  itself  upon  the  People.  This 
is  indeed  the  grand  discipline  of  the  Folk-Soul 
for  its  approaching  task. 

2.  Repeatedly  has  there  been  mention  of 
the  Folk-Soul  whose  conception  must  be  grasped. 
Every  People  may  be  said  to  have  a  soul  of  its 
own,  a  spirit  which  governs  it,  and  which  con 
stitutes  its  essential  character.  Such  an  idea 
undoubtedly  is  derived  from  the  soul  or  spirit  of 
the  individual  man.  In  the  American  Revolution 
the  Folk-Soul  was  united  upon  the  separation 
of  the  colonies  from  the  mother-country.  But 
in  the  present  epoch  we  have  seen  it  dividing 
within  itself  and  becoming  dualized  into  Northern 
and  Southern.  Still  even  in  this  state  of  division 


PART  I.  —  RETROSPECT.  179 

it  is  not  without    a    strong    impulse  toward  re 
union,  which  will  finally  be  brought  about. 

The  Nation  feels,  thinks  and  acts  as  a  unit,  as 
one  Soul  or  Mind,  which  animates  its  total  or 
ganism.  Many  common  expressions  imply  this. 
We  often  hear  of  Public  Sentiment,  or  the  Peo 
ple's  Feeling  on  certain  matters;  then  again,  the 
Popular  Will  is  spoken  of,  indicating  what  the 
Folk-Soul  intends  to  do ;  Public  Opinion  signi 
fies  what  the  People  think.  All  these  terms 
imply  a  Folk-Soul  feeling,  acting,  knowing, 
though  it  be  made  up  of  many  individual  souls, 
each  of  which  feels,  acts  and  knows. 

3.  But  now  conies  the  fact  that  there  are  also 
many  individual  Folk-Souls,  many  separate  Peo 
ples,  each  with  its  Folk-Soul  on  this  globe  of 
ours.  These  are  in  a  process  with  one  another, 
at  least  that  is  the  case  with  many  of  them. 
They  are,  however,  of  very  different  values  at 
different  times;  they  rise,  bloom,  and  decline  in 
the  course  of  History,  which  shows  a  line  of 
ascent  and  descent  in  Nations.  What  is  it  that 
brings  about  these  changes?  Here  we  must 
glimpse  an  Energy  regnant  over  the  Folk-Soul 
and  determining  it,  which  we  call  the  World- 
Spirit,  the  Supreme  Power  of  History.  Other 
names  it  has  more  popular,  but  more  vague, 
such  as  Civilization,  Progress,  the  Logic  of 
Events. 

This  World-Spirit  is  what  impresses  itself  on 


180  THE  TEN  YEAKS^  WAR. 

a  given  people  or  Folk-Soul,  and  makes  the  same 
the  upholder  and  defender  of  its  purpose  or  idea, 
which  usually  takes  an  ethical  form  or  becomes 
a  moral  conviction.  A  peculiar  fact  concerning 
this  World-Spirit  is  its  moving  about  from 
place  to  place,  and  its  selection  of  a  State  or  an 
individual  as  its  supporter.  It  seems  to  find  the 
People  and  the  man  who  have  become  prepared 
for  its  work  through  their  own  free  development. 
The  command  from  without  conies  and  can  only 
come  when  the  command  from  within  has  been 
already  delivered.  We  have  before  noted  that 
the  World-Spirit  leaves  Kansas  for  another  field 
when  one  great  sta^e  of  the  Ten  Years'  War  has 

o  O 

been  completed  with  its  special  task. 

4.  But  is  there  a  still  higher  Power  than  the 
World-Spirit?  Over  it  indeed  must  be  the  Su 
preme  Spirit,  the  Universal  Self  or  the  Self  of 
the  Universe.  The  World's  History  is  but  one 
way  in  which  this  Supreme  Spirit  manifests  itself 
to  and  through  man.  Other  ways  of  its  mani 
festation  are  through  Art,  Science,  Philosophy, 
but  especially  through  Religion,  which  has  also 
its  History,  that  is,  its  varied  appearances  in 
Time.  Ultimately,  then,  Universal  History,  the 
record  of  associated  man  in  the  State  or  in  the 
political  Institution,  must  be  traced  back  in  its 
origin  to  the  Universe  itself  as  Ego,  Self,  Spirit, 
which  creates  it  as  one  form  of  revealing  itself 
and  its  processes.  In  fact  the  predicate,  Uni- 


PART  I.  —  RETROSPECT.  181 

versal,  which  is  applied  to  History  in  its  supreme 
potency,  can  only  be  derived  from  the  Universe 
as  creating  the  same.  Thus  the  World-Spirit 
which  presides  over  History,  is  but  one  form  or 
phase  of  the  One  Spirit,  that  of  the  All.  A 
full  development  of  these  somewhat  remote  and 
mind-stretching  thoughts  belongs,  however,  to 
a  Psychology  of  History.  For  Psychology  is 
now  claiming  to  be  the  Universal  Science  (instead 
of  Philosophy),  which  means  also  the  Science 
of  the  Universe,  of  the  All  as  Self. 

5.  One  of  the  most  significant  parts  of 
historical  study  is  to  find  the  Transition,  the 
point  at  which  one  great  series  of  events  passes 
into  another  constituting  what  are  usually  called 
the  Periods  of  History.  These  are  the  joints 
of  the  historic  organism,  so  to  speak,  or  the 
divisions  of  one  great  historic  Process  into  sub 
ordinate  Processes.  Using  psychological  terms 
which  express  the  ultimate  conception,  we  may 
say  that  every  important  Period,  as  Ancient  or 
Medieval  History,  is  a  Psychosis,  which  is  still 
further  divided  into  many  lesser  Periods,  each 
of  which  again  is  a  Psychosis.  Thus  we  are  to 
see  that  each  part  has  a  principle  in  common 
with  its  whole,  else  it  could  not  be  a  part  of  that 
Whole.  Still  it  is  also  different  from  its  Whole, 
else  it  would  not  be  distinctly  itself.  In  this 
way  each  smaller  historic  Process  or  cycle 
becomes  a  link  in  the  greater  and  greatest 


182  THE  TEN  YEAB&   WAE. 

historic  Process  or  cycle,  imaging  and  indeed 
producing  the  Whole  of  which  it  is  a  member 
and  which  produces  it. 

6.  Eeturning  to  our  special  theme  out  of  these 
generalities,  we  may  study  briefly  the  Transition 
from  Kansas  to  Illinois,  which  now  takes  place 
and  ushers  in  the  Second  Part  of  the  great  con 
flict.  This  Transition  may  be  looked  at  from 
various  points  of  view,  or  rather  it  shows  differ 
ent  and  deepening  forms  of  itself.  Of  these  we 
may  note  the  following: 

(a)  There  is  the  Transition  (already  observed) 
from  a  particular  Free-Stateism  to  a  universal 
Free-Stateism.  Kansas  struggled  to  make  her 
special  Territory  a  Free-State;  she  had  enough 
to  do  at  home  in  that  matter.  But  her  particu 
lar  case  passing  into  the  Northern  States  was 
widened  into  the  general  principle  of  making  all 
the  Territories  into  Free-States,  which  principle 
found  its  expression  in  the  Republican  platform 
of  1856. 

(6)  The  conflict  in  Kansas  between  the  legal 
wrong  and  the  illegal  right  has  been  often 
dwelt  upon  in  the  preceding  account.  Here  it 
need  only  be  said  that  this  conflict  also  passed 
over  into  the  Northern  States,  bringing  to  con 
sciousness  the  sharp  distinction  between  the 
Form  of  Law  and  its  Spirit,  and  impressing  upon 
the  People  their  primordial  right  of  making  their 
own  Laws  and  Institutions  (self-government) 


PARTI.  —  RETROSPECT.  183 

of  which  right  Kansas  had  been  deprived.  Thus 
the  popular  mind  has  been  thrown  back  upon 
itself  as  the  original  and  the  creator  of  the 
established  order  in  which  it  lives. 

Still  in  the  Kansas  conflict  there  was  a  point 
upon  which  both  sides  agreed,  even  if  this  agree 
ment  were  largely  unconscious :  that  was  the 
legal  right  of  the  inhabitants  to  exclude  slavery 
from  their  Territory.  The  Missourians  when 
they  seized  by  violence  and  fraud  the  Forms  of 
Law,  and  used  them  in  the  interest  of  slavery, 
recognized  the  fact  that  the  Kansans  could  employ 
them  rightfully  against  slavery.  Thus  both  sides 
acknowledged  their  validity  and  the  struggle  was, 
which  side  can  get  the  Form  and  set  it  up  as 
authority?  So  it  came  that  one  side  exercised  the 
legality  without  the  right,  and  the  other  exercised 
the  right  without  the  legality.  Both,  however, 
impliedly  agreed  that  the  People  of  Kansas  could 
vote  down  slavery. 

(c)  But  now  falls  like  a  bomb  into  the  midst 
of  the  contestants  the  Dred  Scott  decision  declar 
ing  that  neither  the  People  nor  Congress  can  ex 
clude  Slavery  from  the  Territories  according  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Thus  the 
Missourians  did  not  really  need  to  take  the  trouble 
of  making  their  invasions,  and  of  stealing  the 
legal  Forms ;  these  already  secured  Slavery  from 
the  start.  According  to  the  Supreme  Law  of  the 
land  as  interpreted  by  its  highest  Tribunal  and 


184  THE  TEX  YEARS'   WAR. 

re-affirmed  by  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
"  slavery  exists  in  Kansas  as  much  as  in  South 
Carolina  or  Georgia,"  from  the  very  fact  of  its 
being  the  national  domain,  on  which  the  property 
in  slaves  must  be  protected  like  any  other 
property. 

It  is  plain  that  out  of  this  decision  a  new  and 
deeper  conflict  has  arisen  in  the  North  where  a 
strong  moral  conviction  of  the  wrongful  ness  of 
Slavery  has  taken  hold  of  the  People.  But 
through  the  Supreme  Court  slavery  has  become 
the  all-dominating  institution  of  the  land,  over 
riding  every  sort  of  enactment  in  opposition,  be  it 
of  the  State  or  of  the  Nation.  Thus  the  inner 
moral  world  of  the  Northern  Folk-Soul  has  been 
drawn  into  the  most  grating  dissonance  with  its 
outer  institutional  world,  of  which  conflict  we  are 
now  to  behold  the  leading  phases. 


PART  SECOND -THE  UNION  DISUNITED, 

(1858-1861.) 

During  the  present  period  the  Nation  was  mov 
ing  more  decidedly  toward  Disunion  than  ever 
before  or  since.  In  the  later  Great  War  the 
mightier  effort  was  in  the  other  direction,  toward 
the  maintenance  of  the  Union,  even  by  force  of 
arms.  But  now  we  are  to  witness  an  interme 
diate  epoch  of  an  emphatically  separative  char 
acter;  the  chasm  between  North  and  South,  or 
between  Free-States  and  Slave-States,  starts  to 
widening  and  deepening  again  after  its  apparent 
closing-up  through  the  election  of  Buchanan. 
Hardly  two  years  of  his  Administration  had 
passed  till  it  was  everywhere  felt  in  the  land  that 
a  profounder  disintegration  had  set  in,  which 
would  end  in  complete  dissolution  unless  arrested 
by  an  heroic  remedy. 

The  anxious  outlook  of  the  time  was  voiced  by 


186  THE  TEN  YEAE&   WAR.  —  PART  IL 

one  whom  we  now  see  to  have  been  its  greatest 
man,  Abraham  Lincoln.  In  a  familiar  adage  he 
declares  the  situation  to  be  this:  "A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  The 
American  Union  is  now  such  a  house,  "divided 
against  itself,''  and  in  this  condition  it  cannot 
last.  By  the  lapse  of  years  the  expression  seems 
trite  enough,  but  it  was  a  bold  utterance  for  a 
public  man  when  it  was  first  spoken,  and 
Douglas  will  fling  it  at  him  many  times  in  the 
coming  Illinois  campaign  for  Senatorship. 
Even  Lincoln's  friends  thought  it  impolitic, 
though  it  expresses  what  every  thinking  man 
of  every  party  was  pondering  over  in  a  kind  of 
secret  dread,  so  that  nobody  liked  to  hear  it  said 
outright  in  public. 

But  Lincoln  does  not  leave  us  with  this  gloomy 
prospect  of  national  dissolution  and  death.  la 
the  same  paragraph  of  the  same  speech  in  which 
he  employs  the  foregoing  apothegm  of  separa 
tion  (Springfield,  June  16th,  1858),  he  rises  to 
a  prophetic  outlook  and  gives  a  forecast  of  the 
final  overcoming  of  the  division,  which,  how 
ever,  may  happen  in  two  very  different  ways. 
This  ever-memorable  passage  runs  as  follows : 
"  I  believe  this  Government  cannot  endure 
permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do 
not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved,  but  I 
do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  be 
come  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the 


THE  UNION  DISUNITED.  187 

opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind 
shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of 
ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it 
forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all 
the  States  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as 
South." 

Such  is  the  opening  or  proem  of  the  Lincoln 
part  of  the  Ten  Years'  War  which  has  been 
already  going  on  three  years.  A  prophetic 
utterance  to  whose  fulfillment  events  are  to 
whirl  forward  with  a  dizzying  celerity ;  Lincoln 
has  this  element  of  prophecy  in  him  which 
Douglas  has  not,  the  latter  thinking  that  the 
Union  must  remain  and  ought  to  remain  still 
half  slave  and  half  free.  The  People  feel 
the  truth  of  these  words  of  the  seer  now 
taking  the  form  of  a  stump-speaker,  and  respond 
with  an  open  or  often  with  a  secret  assent. 
In  this  statement  Lincoln  reads  the  Folk-Soul 
aright,  and  gives  a  voice  to  what  is  silently 
brooding  there  and  seeking  utterance.  At  this 
point  Douglas  fails  to  come  into  rhythm  with 
the  deepest  throb  of  the  popular  heart;  his  ear 
is  not  attuned  to  the  Aeolian  whisperings  of  the 
World-Spirit.  He  says  he  does  not  care  whether 
this  Union  be  Slave-State  producing  or  Free- 
State  producing  —  which  is  the  thing  about 
which  everybody  cares  most  and  has  to  care 
most,  by  the  decree  of  the  Gods.  But  Lincoln 


188  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

distinctly  recognizes  the  World-Spirit,  listening 
to  it  and  appealing  to  it  in  words  as  that 
"irresistible  Power,"  which  has  taken  hold  of 
this  American  People  and  gives  it  no  peace  till 
it  performs  its  supreme  duty. 

Moreover  Lincoln  has  tersely  stated  in  the 
above  passage  the  fundamental  fact  of  the  whole 
situation :  The  Union  "  will  become  all  one  thing 
or  all  the  other" — all  slave  or  all  free.  The 
present  intermediate,  divided  condition  —  half 
slave  and  half  free — cannot  last.  One  side  or 
the  other  will  make  itself  universal;  the  crisis 
has  arrived,  long  foreseen,  when  freedom  and 
slavery  can  no  longer  live  in  the  same  national 
household.  Already  there  have  been  deep  disa 
greements  followed  by  temporary  reconciliations 
called  compromises.  But  the  last  compromise 
has  been  made  and  the  current  has  set  in  strongly 
toward  universalizing  freedom  or  slavery. 

That  is,  the  North  must  be  transformed  by  the 
South,  or  the  South  must  be  transformed  by  the 
North.  The  South  has  already  begun  to  claim 
that  all  Northern  enactments  against  slavery, 
that  all  Free-State  Constitutions  are  nationally 
unconstitutional  through  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
and  must  be  repealed.  And  that  is  by  no  means 
the  whole  of  the  matter.  You,  the  North, 
must  stop  all  agitation  on  slavery,  you  must 
put  the  free  discussion  of  it  under  ban  as  we 
have;  still  further,  as  Lincoln  declares,  you 


THE  UNION  DISUNITED.  189 

must  surrender  your  moral  conviction  against  it, 
and  say  it  is  right,  as  we  do.  Then  we  can  stay 
with  you  in  the  Union  harmonious,  homogeneous, 
all  acknowledging  slavery  to  be  "  the  corner 
stone  of  our  republican  edifice." 

On  the  other  hand  the  North  is  determined 
not  to  have  any  such  homogeneity,  and  has 
shown  the  fact  in  Kansas.  Thus  the  two  sides 
are  planting  themselves,  front  to  front,  in  an  align 
ment  for  the  future.  The  North  is  clearly  not 
going  to  let  itself  be  transformed  into  the  South 
in  the  matter  of  slavery ;  but  it  is  not  yet  ready 
to  take  the  more  advanced  step,  which  is  to 
transform  the  South  into  itself  in  the  matter  of 
freedom. 

Truly  separation  has  entered  the  Folk-Soul  of 
the  Nation,  making  of  it  two  Folk-Souls,  North 
ern  and  Southern,  each  of  which  is  getting  more 
and  more  alienated  from  the  other.  The  Union 
is  no  longer  a  unity  of  spirit,  but  the  disruption 
has  penetrated  to  the  very  heart  of  the  Nation. 
And  why?  Let  us  recall  the  basic  thought  of 
this  whole  process:  the  one  portion,  the  South 
ern,  will  produce  Slave-States;  the  other  portion, 
the  Northern,  will  produce  Free- States.  Now  the 
Union  is  State-producing  as  made  by  the  Con 
stitution  ;  but  this  deepest  function  of  it,  the 
genetic,  has  developed  into  two  opposing  char 
acters  —  it  is  Free-State  producing  and  also 
Slave-State  producing.  Thus  the  genesis  of 


190  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

States,  as  the  profoundest  movement  of  History, 
the  Constitution  grasped,  formulated,  but  also 
compromised  —  out  of  which  fact  has  grown  in 
seventy  years  this  division  with  its  bitter  conflict. 
Accordingly  the  separation  of  the  United  States 
into  two  great  and  antagonistic  sections,  North 
and  South,  is  the  all-dominating  phenomenon  of 
the  present  historic  period,  the  difference  turn 
ing  upon  the  alternative :  Shall  slavery  be 
kneaded  into  the  one  or  out  of  the  other?  The 
inner  Disunion  is  actually  taking  place,  caused 
by  the  vitriolic  intensity  of  the  two  sides  of  the 
problem.  But  we  may  also  note  that  the  counter- 
process  has  also  begun,  whose  end  is  to  elim 
inate  this  cause  and  to  restore  the  Union.  Yet 
each  of  the  two  contending  sides  has  its  own 
separate  movement,  which  is,  however,  in  strong 
opposition  to  the  other  side.  Thus  the  American 
Folk-Soul  is  cleft  in  twain,  and  each  part  com 
mences  to  have  an  independent  life  of  its  own. 
Such  is  the  separation  which  has  broken  up  the 
oneness  and  harmony  of  the  Nation  internally 
and  externally,  and  which  will  pass  from  the 
totality  into  every  constituent  portion  of  the 
land.  The  division  which  we  saw  arising  in 
Kansas  has  extended  through  the  whole  Union, 

O 

and  cannot  be  stopped  while  the  present   order 
lasts. 

The  result  is  the  historic  process  undergoes  a 
change.     Kansas  is  no  longer  the  special  object 


THE  UNION"  DIS  UNITED.  191 

of  irritation,  the  powers  at  Washington  give  up 
the  attempt  to  coerce  it  into  being  a  Slave- 
State.  The  whole  South  and  the  whole  North 
begin  to  irritate  each  other,  keeping  the  peace  as 
yet,  but  having  deep  presentiments  of  the  com 
ing  issue.  Each  side  is  wrestling  within  itself, 
in  unconscious  preparation  for  its  destined  work. 
Then  they  both  come  together  in  a  preliminary 
contest,  still  pacific  though  full  of  menaces,  — 
the  Presidential  election,  whereupon  the  Great 
War  breaks  out,  the  inner  strife  becoming  an 
outer  reality. 

Looking  back  to  1856,  we  observe  that  Kansas 
had  divided  the  North  into  two  political  parties, 
Republican  and  Democratic;  — but  it  had  prac 
tically  united  the  South,  as  no  Republican  party 
with  its  Free-Stateism  existed  in  that  section. 
The  large  minorities  which  even  in  Republican 
States  supported  Buchanan,  the  Democratic  can 
didate,  show  a  divided  North  which  therefore 
was  not  yet  ready  internally  for  its  task.  The 
grand  discipline  is  not  complete,  the  Northern 
Folk-Soul  must  go  to  school  four  years  more  to 
the  World-Spirit,  ere  it  be  fully  panoplied  within 
to  march  forth  into  action  and  to  vindicate  the 
American  Union  as  producing  Free-States  only. 

Already  we  have  seen  in  1857  a  new  division 
taking  place,  this  also  through  Kansas.  The 
Democratic  party,  which  showed  a  united  front 
in  1856,  has  become  separated  into  two  wings, 


192  THE   TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

Northern  and  Southern.  The  breach  which 
Douglas  has  made  in  the  Democracy  has  rent  the 
South  more  deeply  than  the  North.  His  doctrine 
of  Popular  Sovereignty  would  permit  Kansas  to 
become  a  Free-State,  which  was  the  great  object 
of  the  North.  Thus  his  party  and  the  Republi 
cans  reached  the  same  end  though  by  different 
ways.  But  this  end  was  what  the  leading 
Southern  element  sought  to  thwart  by  every 
means,  not  even  shunning  violence.  Still 
Douglas  had  many  followers  in  the  South,  and 
so  divided  it,  particularly  in  its  more  Northern 
portion.  Thus  it  may  be  said  that  the  North  in 
1858  shows  a  tendency  toward  unity  within  itself, 
and  hence  toward  the  Union,  while  the  South 
has  the  opposite  trend,  manifesting  separation 
within  itself,  with  the  consequent  lurch  toward 
Disunion.  Besides,  it  is  getting  more  and  more 
evident  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  has  failed  in 
its  political  purpose,  which  was  to  destroy  the 
legality  of  both  the  Northern  parties,  since  it 
outlawed  Popular  Sovereignty  as  well  as  Republi 
canism. 

Through  Kansas  the  North  has  been  trained  to 
assert  that  mother  Union  must  be  the  bearer  of 
Free-States  exclusively,  even  though  Slavery  is 
not  to  be  touched  where  it  already  exists  by 
law.  But  the  North  is  not  yet  ready  to  assume 
the  vast  task  of  transforming  the  whole  South  in 
reference  to  slavery;  it  shuns  the  burden,  turns 


THE  U^7ION  DISUNITED.  193 

away  from  its  call,  and  palters  for  a  time  with  it? 
very  destiny.  But  when  through  the  attack  on 
Sumter,  the  alternative  is  presented  either  to  ac 
cept  the  division  of  the  Union  or  to  eradicate  the 
cause  of  this  division,  the  country  enters  a  new 
stage  of  the  Ten  Years'  War  and  the  present 
period  closes. 

And  now  the  historic  process  before  mentioned 
which  underlies  and  shapes  the  varied  events  of 
these  three  years  (1858-61)  is  to  be  surveyed 
with  due  care.  First  we  must  consider  the  North 
and  its  inner  character  and  movement;  then  the 
South  and  its  inner  character  and  movement ; 
finally  there  unfolds  the  actual  deed  of  Secession, 
with  its  first  stroke  in  South  Carolina.  Where 
upon  suddenly  the  Nation,  or  a  majority  thereof , 
quits  this  period  of  division,  and  starts  afresh 
toward  Union,  which  it  ultimately  attains. 

L3 


CHAPTER  I.  — THE  NORTH. 

Territorially  the  North  extends  from  Maine  to 
California  and  embraces  the  Free-States.  In  this 
long  line  of  Commonwealths,  the  conflict  which 
we  have  been  describing  hovers  about  the  middle; 
Kansas,  for  instance,  is  said  to  be  the  geographi 
cal  center  of  the  United  States,  Alaska  being 
excepted.  Still  this  center  is  now  the  border  of 
settlement,  and  has  generated  the  struggle  which 
has  evidently  started  on  its  march  eastward, 
with  Washington  for  its  destination.  Again  the 
colonies  sent  out  to  the  frontier,  as  in  the  old 
Greek  time,  begin  the  grand  conflict  of  the  age, 
which  reaches  back  to  their  mother-states  and 
involves  these  in  the  same  trouble.  The  Kansas 
struggle  passes  to  the  rest  of  the  country,  and 
specially  to  Illinois  where  it  shows  itself  in  a  new 
set  of  historic  events,  which  are  to  be  recounted 
next. 

As  already  seen,  the  Border  War,  even  though 
(194)  " 


CHAPTER  /.  -    THE  NORTH.  195 

continued,  drops  from  its  important  place,  having 
brought  freedom  to  Kansas,  and  having  made  its 
principle  of  Free-Stateism  that  of  a  great  national 
party.  The  issue  is  no  longer  merely:  Shall 
this  individual  State  Kansas  be  free  ?  but  it  runs 
now :  Shall  all  individual  States  hereafter  enter 
ing  the  Union  be  free?  The  Folk-Soul  of  the 
North  is  still  resolved  to  affirm,  as  it  did  affirm  in 
the  Presidential  election  of  1856,  that  the  United 
States,  in  her  supreme  genetic  function  as  State- 
producing,  must  in  the  future  produce  Free- 
States  only. 

But  we  must  recall  the  heavy  counter-stroke 
which  has  been  dealt  to  this  view  and  to  the  party 
which  held  it,  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  The 
National  Judiciary  has  entered  the  contest  and 
really  usurps  legislative  powers,  making  slavery 
constitutional  everywhere,  not  so  much  by  its 
direct  decision  of  the  case  before  it  as  by  its  ex 
tra-judicial  declarations  (obiter  dicta).  Territo 
ries,  and  States  too,  have  no  power  to  exclude 
slave  property.  The  Constitution  is  inherently 
the  protector  and  also  the  generator  of  Slavery ; 
under  it  no  real  Free-State  can  be  brought  forth, 
and  indeed  no  State  already  free  can  so  be 
constitutionally. 

This  is  the  new  fact  which  the  People  of  the 
North  have  to  meet,  producing  a  deeper  rift 
within  than  was  visible  during  the  campaign  of 
1856.  The  highest  tribunal  in  the  land,  perform- 


196          THE  TEN  YEARS1    WAR.—   PART II. 

ing  its  constitutional  duty  of  interpreting  the 
Constitution,  declares  that  this  instrument  does 
not  give  Congress  the  power  of  excluding  Slavery 
from  the  Territories.  Thus  the  Supreme  Court 
has  put  under  the  ban  of  illegality  the  Folk-Soul 
of  the  North  in  its  vote  of  1856.  But  its  moral 
conviction  in  regard  to  slavery  remains  the  same, 
or  possibly  is  intensified  by  this  attempted  sup 
pression.  What  is  now  to  be  done?  Our  con 
science  and  our  law  have  fallen  into  the  most 
poignant  contradiction,  and  yet  both  demand  our 
obedience;  the  supreme  authority  within  and  the 
supreme  authority  without,  both  of  them  sacred 
and  man-saving,  have  grappled  in  deadly  antipa 
thy,  and  are  rending  each  human  soul  in  their 
conflict. 

Such  is  the  problem  which  the  Northern  Peo 
ple  are  pondering  and  trying  in  some  way  to 
settle  during  these  years  after  the  Dred  Scott 
decision.  Our  Constitution  is  made  to  throttle 
our  moral  conviction ;  our  organic  law  crushes  or 
is  employed  to  crush  our  sense  of  right.  What 
shall  we  do?  Revolutionize,  destroy  our  Consti 
tution?  Or  shall  we  obliterate  our  Conscience? 
Neither  way  is  possible;  the  Folk-Soul  must 
have  both  law  and  right,  it  cannot  do  without 
Conscience  or  the  Constitution,  these  being  the 
two  halves  of  its  very  selfhood.  There  must  be 
a  way  of  reconciliation,  there  must  be  some  man 
to  point  out  this  way.  Such  a  man  now  steps 


CHAP  TEE  I.  —  THE  NORTH.  197 

forward,  as  if  in  response  to  the  importunate 
cry  of  the  agonized  Folk-Soul:  it  is  Abraham 
Lincoln  whose  early  theme  is,  How  to  preserve 
the  inner  world  of  conviction  along  with  the 
outer  world  of  legality,  of  which  two  worlds  the 
harmonious  co-working  has  been  so  deeply  con 
vulsed  by  the  decision  of  Judge  Taney. 

The  People,  from  whose  spiritual  depths  all 
government  in  the  United  States  must  ultimately 
issue,  is,  accordingly,  turning  over  and  over  this 
great  new  problem,  making  up  its  mind  before 
proceeding  to  ballot  in  the  next  Presidential 
election.  The  impress  of  the  coming  Order,  with 
its  supreme  decree,  usually  takes  an  ethical  form 
at  present,  and  speaks  as  the  voice  of  Conscience, 
of  old  regarded  as  divinely  sent.  This  ethical 
impress  the  Folk-Soul  of  the  North  had  received 
in  regard  to  slavery,  but  had  rather  naively 
united  the  same  with  its  Constitution,  which,  it 
took  for  granted,  gave  to  Congress  the  power  of 
preventing  the  increase  in  the  number  of  Slave- 
States.  But  now  the  Constitution  is  declared 
to  be  just  the  opposite  from  its  own  highest 
judgment-seat;  it  is  adjudicated  to  be  inher 
ently  Slave-State  producing  and  not  Free- 
State  producing,  except  by  a  kind  of  tolerated 
exception,  but  soon  to  be  no  longer  tolerated. 
The  result  is  the  profoundest  breach  that  ever 
plagued  the  soul  of  a  nation  in  all  the  conflicts 
of  History  during  the  grand  march  down  Time. 


198          THE  TEN  TEAKS'1   WAI?.  —  PART  II. 

The  moral  man  and  the  institutional  man,  both 
hitherto  one  and  at  peace  with  himself,  is  thrown 
into  a  state  of  inner  war,  which  he  has  to  wage 
all  to  himself  through  many  a  defeat  and  victory 
till  the  final  triumph.  Such  a  prototype  of  the 
coming  outer  war  lies  during  these  years  in  every 
human  heart  which  deeply  communes  with  the 
Spirit  of  the  Age.  Drinking  of  this  Spirit,  it 
becomes  ethical,  and  feels  the  wrong  of  slavery ; 
but  this  ethical  wrong  is  legally  a  right,  yea  a 
right  which  is  seeking  to  propagate  itself  even 
by  force  where  it  has  never  been  acknowledged, 
thus  making  itself  universal  in  the  outer  world 
and  at  the  same  time  claiming  a  place,  and  an 
absolute  place,  in  the  inner  sanctuary  of  Con 
science  itself.  For  its  supporters  have  begun 
to  affirm  its  rightfulness  also  and  its  divinely 
ordained  mission. 

This,  then,  was  the  task  of  the  Northern  Folk- 
Soul  in  which  each  individual  soul  more  or  less 
participated  —  a  task  set  before  it  by  the  Dred 
Scott  decision.  A  great  training  lay  therein, 
truly  of  world-historical  significance  ;  this  was  to 
throw  a  bridge  for  all  future  time  over  the  chasm 
between  the  moral  and  the  institutional  realms  of 
man.  This  chasm  has  just  at  present  made  its 
appearance,  at  least  its  most  definite  and  epoch- 
compelling  appearance  in  the  movement  of 
History,  and  the  problem  imperiously  demands 
solution. 


CHAPTER  I.  —  THE  NORTH.  199 

With  such  a  harassing  conflict  or  rather  double 
conflict,  that  between  North  and  South  and  that 
in  the  Northern  mind  between  Right  as  ideal  and 
Law  as  real,  we  enter  the  year  1858,  in  which 
there  are  congressional  and  senatorial  elections, 
though  it  is  not  a  Presidential  year.  We  are  to 
conceive  two  Tribunals,  each  of  which  has  rend 
ered  a  decision  upon  the  pivotal  question  of  the 
time :  erne  of  which  is  that  of  the  World-Spirit 
which  utters  its  decree  through  the  moral  con 
viction  of  the  individual ;  the  other  is  that  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  which 
is  voiced  by  Judge  Taney.  The  highest  happi 
ness  of  a  man  and  of  a  people  is  when  these  two 
decisions  agree  and  re-inforce  each  other;  but 
most  unhappy  is  the  time  when  they  disagree 
and  each  threatens  to  destroy  the  other,  though 
both  belong  to  the  complete  soul,  individual  and 
national.  The  behest  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Age 
whispered  inwardly  contradicts  the  Law's  enact 
ment  proclaimed  outwardly. 

The  first  duty  of  the  Northern  Folk- Soul  is  to 
bring  itself  into  some  kind  of  harmony  with  itself ; 
it  must  conquer  an  inner  peace  before  it  can  ever 
conquer  an  outer  peace.  It  must  be  able  to 
triumph  over  its  own  Disunion  ere  it  can  triumph 
over  the  Disunion  of  the  South.  It  must  come 
to  see  how  the  moral  can  be  made  institutional, 
and  govern  the  man  not  from  within  alone,  but 
also  from  without.  Hence  in  these  years 


200         THE  TEN  TEAKS'   WAE.  —  PART  II. 

(1858-1861)  we  see  a  process  going  on  in  the 
North  and  begetting  a  profound  inner  struggle, 
which,  however,  is  to  clarify  itself  into  recon 
ciliation. 

There  is,  then,  the  conviction  that  the  produc 
tion  of  Slave-States  by  the  Union  must  be 
stopped.  But  how  is  this  cessation  to  be  brought 
about,  particularly  against  the  opposing  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court?  In  what  way  can  we 
preserve  Law  and  Constitution,  and  yet  be  true 
to  the  behest  of  Conscience?  Three  prominent 
methods  appear  and  are  employed  by  different 
men,  all  of  them  having  their  place  in  this 
special  History,  and,  as  we  think,  also  in  the 
World's  History.  Typical  men  they  may  be 
deemed,  incarnating  a  pivotal  phase  or  thought 
of  their  epoch,  more  completely  or  at  least  more 
strikingly  than  other  individuals.  One  of  them  i;> 
quite  unknown  to  fame;  another  has  a  wide  but 
perhaps  waning  distinction;  the  remaining  man 
bears  the  greatest  name  which  the  Ten  Years' 
War  produced.  Him  we  shall  consider  first. 


THE  NORTH.  —  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.        201 


Bbrabam  xtncoln. 

Several  times  already  the  name  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  has  appeared  in.  the  course  of  the  fore 
going  account.  Previous  to  his  campaign  with 
Douglas,  he  could  hardly  be  called  a  man  of 
national  fame.  Still  on  a  number  of  points  he 
had  shown  himself  a  prime  mover  in  the  new 
party  now  forming;  as  its  essential  principle  he 
had  already  formulated  (in  1854)  the  exclusion 
of  slavery  from  all  the  Territories  a  good  while 
before  Seward  and  the  Eastern  States  had  be 
gun  to  move  in  the  same  direction.  Moreover 
Lincoln's  statement  that  a  Union  divided  into 
"  half  slave  and  half  free  "  cannot  last,  was  four 
months  before  Seward's  affirmation  of  the 
"  irrepressible  conflict"  between  slavery  and 
freedom,  both  utterances  forecasting  the  struggle 
at  hand  as  well  as  furnishing  a  rallyiug-cry  for 
the  rising  part}7.  Still  further,  Lincoln  had 
not  only  to  meet  Douglas,  but  he  had  to 
conquer  the  great  Republican  newspapers  of 
the  East,  especially  the  chief  one,  the  New 
York  Tribune,  which  openly  favored  Douglas 
and  even  proposed  to  accept  Popular  Sovereigntv 
as  the  Republican  doctrine,  thus  destroying  its 
true  universal  character.  This  act  of  Greeley, 
however,  is  the  beginning  of  his  eclipse,  he  has 


202         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

shown  himself  an  unsafe  guide  in  the  deepest 
matter,  and  he  will  never  again  have  the  same 
influence  after  the  Illinois  campaign  that  he  had 
before.  Lincoln  had  to  bring  his  own  party  in 
the  East  up  to  the  mark — the  fact  which  makes 
him  the  leader.  More  than  any  other  man  he 
formed  and  directed  the  political  organization 
which  made  him  President,  fought  the  War, 
freed  the  Slave,  and  restored  the  Union  as 
Free -State  producing. 

With  the  instruction  of  time  it  is  getting  to 
be  very  plain  that  the  hero  of  our  American  Ten 
Years'  War  is  not  the  fighter,  not  the  military 
man,  but  the  man  of  political  life,  the  man  of 
the  State.  From  the  Iliad  down  through  Europe's 
famed  events,  the  doer  of  warlike  deeds  has 
been  the  towering  heroic  figure.  The  matchless 
leader  or  director  of  the  battle  has  inspired  the 
epic  lay.  And  History  dwells  largely  upon  Alex 
ander,  Caesar,  Charlemagne,  Napoleon,  of  whom 
we  are  inclined  to  think  when  the  greatest  his 
toric  heroes  of  Europe  are  mentioned,  though 
they  all  had  their  very  important  civil  career. 
Even  our  own  Washington  was  probably  more 
of  a  military  hero  than  civil. 

But  does  it  not  indicate  a  great  change  in  the 
Spirit  of  the  Ages  when  the  hero  of  the  greatest 
war,  and  the  commander-in-chief  of  its  armies,  is 
political  rather  than  military?  This  lies  deeply, 
we  would  fain  think,  in  the  American  Govern- 


THE  NORTH.  —  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.        203 

ment,  which  is  now  the  State-producing  State,  not 
State-destroying  or  State-conquering;  hence  the 
political  element  is  far  more  dominant  than  in 
Europe  which  never  had  the  State-producing 
State,  but  the  State-subjecting  State  in  one  form 
or  other. 

I.  In  1858  the  conflict  passes  from  Kansas 
to  Illinois,  and  becomes  an  oratorical  battle 
fought  before  the  people  between  the  two  great 
protagonists  of  the  North  —  Lincoln  and  Doug 
las.  The  World's  History  takes  wings  and 
leaves  the  extreme  Western  Border,  where  its 
decree  has  been  fulfilled,  or  where,  in  old 
Homer's  speech,  the  Will  of  Zeus  has  been 
accomplished ;  it  moves  eastward  and  crosses  the 
Mississippi,  hovering  and  circling  over  the 
prairies  of  Illinois,  a  new  or  derived  State,  not 
one  of  the  Old  Thirteen.  Here  is  to  be  enacted 
the  next  epoch-making  scene  in  the  American 
Ten  Years'  War,  the  Olympian  contest  between 
the  two  strongest  men  of  the  land.  The  imme 
diate  prize  is  the  Senatorship  of  the  State,  but 
the  greater  prize  is  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  yet  far  greater  prize  is  the  lead 
ership  in  the  approaching  struggle  which  has  to 
transform  these  United  States,  half  slave  and 
half  free,  into  a  wholly  free  Federal  Union 
whose  creative  power  is  to  be  Free-State  pro 
ducing  forever. 

Lincoln  in  1858  was  forty-nine  years  old  and  had 


204  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PAR  T  IT. 

received  the  experience  of  one  term's  service  in 
the  National  House  of  Representatives  during 
the  Mexican  War,  after  which  he  gave  himself 
up  to  the  practice  of  the  law.  During  his  earlier 
years  he  had  tilled  the  soil,  split  rails,  taken  a 
trip  down  the  river  on  a  flat-boat,  kept  store, 
seen  a  little  military  service  as  captain  of  a 
company  of  militia  during  the  Black  Hawk  War. 
This  does  not  exhaust  the  list  of  occupations  at 
which  Lincoln  tried  his  hand  during  young- 
manhood.  Externally  he  was  not  successful,  he 
was  even  called  shiftless  if  not  lazy.  But  there 
is  no  doubt  that  he  was  internally  at  work;  he 
was  communing  with  the  People  and  learning 
their  way  of  seeing  and  putting  things,  he  was 
appropriating  their  stories,  anecdotes,  humor, 
and  moreover  getting  a  peep  into  their  prob 
lems  and  anxieties.  For  Lincoln  was  also  in 
trospective,  self-examining,  with  a  profoundly 
moral  nature  which  could  become  at  times  mor 
bid.  During  these  years,  apparently  aimless 
and1  profitless,  he  was  going  to  school,  kept  by  a 
peculiar  invisible  master,  the  Folk-Soul.  With 
this  master  he  became  better  acquainted  than  any 
man  of  his  time,  if  not  of  all  time,  and  remained 
on  intimate  terms  with  him  to  the  last.  Such  is 
the  book,  too,  which  Lincoln  studied  directly,  the 
Book  of  the  People,  not  printed  or  printable, 
but  rather  the  source  and  inspiration  of  all  print 
worthy  of  being  read.  This  Book  of  the  People 


THE  NOETIL  —  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.        205 

he  learned  to  read  at  first  hand,  and  then  he 
studied  other  books  derived  from  this  funda 
mental  Book,  namely  the  Bible  and  Shakespeare, 
which  are  really  its  very  best  productions  in  the 
English  tongue.  A  mathematical  book,  Euclid, 
was  also  in  his  school  course,  partly  for  a  pro 
fessional  purpose  (Lincoln  tried  surveying  also), 
but  chiefly  as  a  mental  training  to  order  and 
sequence  of  thought.  Finally  Lincoln  absorbed 
profoundly  the  spirit  of  the  Law,  the  established 
system  of  Justice  among  men. 

II.  Turning  to  Douglas  we  see  physically  and 
mentally  the  striking  counterpart  of  Lincoln. 
The  one  was  short,  thick,  stocky,  yet  rather 
quick  in  movement;  the  other  'was  thin  and 
tall,  long-legged  and  long-armed,  rather  slow  in 
his  motions.  The  face  of  Douglas  was  full, 
rotund,  smiling,  lit  up  with  good  nature  and  a 
deferential  condescension,  showing  a  conscious 
ness  of  being  a  popular  man  and  of  liking  it  well ; 
Lincoln's  sallow,  bony,  angular  countenance 
was  overspead  with  a  look  of  melancholy  out  of 
which  would  flash  unexpectedly  gleams  of 
fantastic  humor  and  drollery,  accompanied  by 
anecdotes,  jokes,  keen  repartees.  He  seemed  to 
wear  a  tragic  mask  under  which  he  played  life's 
comic  part,  but  the  fact  was,  the  tragedy  was 
the  reality  while  the  comedy  wras  the  mask, 
giving  him  relief  from  the  inner  burden  of  his 

o  o 

soul. 


206  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

Douglas  was  four  years  younger  than  Lin 
coln,  had  entered  Congress  in  1842,  and  had 
remained  in  public  station  rising  from  the  stage 
of  Kepresentative  to  that  of  Senator.  He  had 
matured  more  early  and  more  superficially  than 
Lincoln,  who  was  a  slow  grower,  probably 
reaching  his  highest  ripeness  about  this  time. 
But  the  deeper  difference  was  that  Lincoln  had 
developed  far  more  his  inner  life,  freed  from  the 
trammels  of  office,  while  Douglas  had  led  a 
political  career,  keeping  himself  in  the  public 
eye  and  outwardly  adjusting  himself  to  an 
official  life  from  the  time  that  he  was  a  young 
man  under  thirty.  The  result  was  that  the  moral 
element  of  Douglas  was  not  so  fully  developed ; 
it  was  subordinated  in  him  to  the  political  ele 
ment,  in  which  he  lived  and  moved  and  had 
his  being.  Hence  it  comes  that  in  the  political 
atmosphere  of  Washington,  he,  though  a  popu 
lar  man,  and  indeed  a  man  of  the  People,  had 
lost  touch  with  the  Northern  Folk-Soul  in  its 
deepest  aspiration,  which  was  moral.  It  is  at  this 
point  that  Lincoln  showed  his  superiority  from  the 
start,  showed  himself  to  be  in  deeper  communion 
with  the  Folk-Soul  and  its  secret  workings.  Its 
response  to  Lincoln's  words  became  stronger  and 
stronger  to  the  end  of  the  campaign.  The 
Democrats  themselves  often  responded  in  secret 
heart-throbs,  and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
Douglas,  sitting  on  the  stand  near  Lincoln 


THE  NORTH.  —  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.         207 

speaking,  felt  the  thrill  of  the  moral  purpose  of 
the  Folk-Soul  which  Lincoln  voiced  back  to 
its  source,  the  People.  It  came  of  that  "  irre 
sistible  Power  "  which  was  abroad  in  the  land 
and  had  entered  every  human  soul,  insisting  that 
this  question  of  Slavery  cannot  be  indifferently 
dropped  at  will,  but  must  be  settled  now  for 
once  and  for  all,  before  anything  else  can  be 
done  by  this  nation. 

The  two  had  known  each  other  long,  some 
twenty-four  years,  and  had  met  often  as  rivals 
at  the  bar,  on  the  hustings,  and,  it  is  said,  in 
love  for  the  same  woman,  Douglas  had  far  out 
stripped  Lincoln  in  fame  and  honor,  and  had 
roused  in  the  latter  a  streak  of  jealousy  per 
chance,  or  at  least  a  secret  feeling  that  the 
better  man  was  not  appreciated.  For  Lincoln 
had  unquestionably  great  ambition,  and  must 
have  felt  his  power  and  his  call.  Still  that  which 
shone  out  of  the  man  and  transfigured  his  con 
duct  was  his  moral  nature,  which  was  early  recog 
nized  and  won  him  the  title  of  "  honest  Abe." 
Now  it  was  this  moral  element  which  brought 
him  into  harmony  with  the  Folk-Soul  of  the 
time  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Yet  the  conflict 
which  sprang  from  it  was  intensely  in  him  too, 
the  conflict  between  the  moral  and  the  institu 
tional  man,  between  the  right  of  the  Conscience 
and  the  right  of  the  Constitution.  Lincoln  felt 
both,  and  he  had  found  not  only  for  himself  but 


208  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAIL  —  PART  II. 

for  the  People  a  way  out  of  the  bitter  struggle 
to  reconciliation.  This  was  the  message  which 

D 

he  had  to  deliver  in  the  forthcoming  political 
campaign,  and  which  made  him  the  voice  of  his 
Nation,  and  indeed  of  his  Age. 

Such  was  the  man  selected  primarily  by' him 
self,  but  also  selected  by  the  World-Spirit  for 
its  task.  Not  a  beautiful  plastic  figure  as  he 
rose  to  speak  and  stood  there  before  the  surging 
multitude,  not  an  ideal  shape  which  the  Greek 
sculptor  would  love  to  model,  but  ungainly,  big- 
handed,  raw-boned,  with  body  trained  by  the 
irregular  but  exacting  toil  of  the  frontiersman, 
not  by  the  proportion-seeking,  form-giving  pal 
estra.  But  if  not  beauty,  yet  enormous 
strength  he  possessed,  whose  test  was  not  an 
Olympic  victory  against  hundreds  of  competitors 
before  assembled  Greeks,  but  the  ability  to  pick 
up  a  cask  of  beer  and  drink  from  the  bung-hole 
before  the  admiring  villagers.  Surely  an  un- 
Honieric  hero  and  an  un-Homeric  world;  yet 
here  too  begins  an  Iliad  with  its  burden  and  its 
woes  sent  of  the  Gods;  yea  with  its  modern  hero 
Achilles,  who  if  not  now  "  the  most  beautiful 
of  the  Greeks  "  is  by  far  the  greatest  leader  of 
his  People. 

III.  The  State  of  Illinois  had  three  belts  of 
population,  Northern,  Middle,  and  Southern. 
The  first  belt  (Northern)  was  settled  largely  from 
New  England  and  New  York,  and  had  a  very 


THE  NORTH.  —  ABE  AH  AM  LINCOLN.        209 

pronounced  anti-slavery  sentiment.  The  Middle 
belt  was  much  more  conservative,  having  a  con 
siderable  substrate  of  Pennsylvania  Germans,  who 
had  moved  westward  on  the  same  lines  of  lati 
tude,  with  a  strong  infusion  from  the  North  as 
well  as  from  the  South.  This  part  of  the  State 
was  the  uncertain  one  politically;  it  was  now 
making  up  its  mind,  and  was  ready  for  argu 
ment.  The  Southern  belt,  composed  almost 
entirely  of  emigrants  from  the  South,  was 
obstinately  and  nearly  unanimously  Democratic, 
called  for  this  reason  Egypt  by  the  Republican 
press.  It  was  evident  that  the  Middle  belt 
furnished  the  best  field  for  making  converts ;  the 
side  which  could  win  most  votes  there  would  be 
victorious.  This  fact  is  seen  in  the  arrangement 
for  the  localities  of  the  seven  joint  debates 
between  Lincoln  and  Douglas ;  one  took  place  in 
Southern  Illinois,  two  in  Northern,  four  in  the 
Middle  belt  or  on  its  border. 

The  scheme  of  Douglas  was  subtle :  he  sought 

o  o 

to  make  Lincoln  commit  himself  in  Northern 
Illinois  (Ottawa  and  Freeport)  to  abolition  doc 
trines  which  were  not  in  favor  with  the  Middle 
and  Southern  belts.  But  Lincoln  was  evidently 
on  his  guard,  and  clung  closely  to  the  one  fun 
damental  principle  of  exclusion  of  slavery  from 
the  Territories.  He  held  aloof  from  the  doctrine 
of  the  Higher  Law,  and  frankly  declared  that  the 
South  had  a  right  under  the  Constitution  to  a 

14 


210  THE  TEN  FEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

fair  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  What  he  said  was  not 
always  palatable  to  the  abolitionists  of  the  North 
ern  belt;  but  they  had  to  vote  for  him  anyhow. 

On  the  other  hand  at  Jouesboro  in  the 
Southern  belt,  he  would  probably  not  change 
many  votes.  Douglas  nevertheless  charged  him 
with  varying  his  doctrine  according  to  the  lati 
tude,  but  this  charge  he  repelled  with  success. 

So  the  voters  of  Illinois  are  witnesses  and  also 
judges  of  a  contest  which  has  become  world-his 
torical.  It  is  indeed  a  kind  of  Gigantoinachia 
between  the  two  mighty  protagonists  of  opposing 
principles.  Defeated  for  the  Senatorship  though 
he  had  a  popular  majority  in  the  State,  Lincoln 
really  won  the  Presidency.  This  fact  is  often  said 
to  have  been  the  result  of  the  Freeport  answer 
of  Douglas  to  Lincoln's  question:  Can  the  Peo 
ple  of  a  Territory  exclude  slavery  against  the 
wish  of  any  citizen?  Douglas  declared  they 
could  through  "police  regulations"  and  "un 
friendly  legislation."  By  this  answer  the  South 
is  supposed  to  have  been  alienated  from  Douglas, 
though  Illinois  may  have  been  won  for  him. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  Lincoln  has  in  the  present 
debate  formulated  with  distinctness  the  prin 
ciples  of  his  party  and  given  to  it  a  definite 
purpose.  This  party  is  not  going  to  perish 
through  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  but  rather  re 
verse  the  latter.  Nor  is  there  to  be  a  slump  to 
Popular  Sovereignty,  which  Greeley  and  the 


THE  XOR  Til  —ABB  A.  HA  Jf  L  /A7  G  OL  JV.         211 

East  soon  are  brought  to  abandon.  Nor  are  the 
extreme  doctrines  of  certain  abolitionists  to 
be  accepted.  A  derived  State  (Illinois)  thus 
takes  the  lead,  and  in  a  manner  reconstructs  the 
old  East-Northern  States.  Lincoln  has  proved 
himself  the  intellectual  leader  of  the  new  move 
ment,  which  fact  is  soon  to  have  its  practical 
fulfillment  in  his  elevation  to  the  Presidency. 

IV.  Some  four  years  before  this  contest, 
Lincoln  had  entered  what  may  be  deemed  a  new 
period  of  his  life.  He  was  quietly  engaged  in  his 
law  practice,  thinking  that  slavery,  as  he  says, 
was  '« in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction,"  and 
that  the  great  problem  of  the  country  was  slowly 
solving  itself,  when  he  was  roused  by  the  Repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise  in  1854.  Moreover 
there  was  a  personal  side  to  this  act:  it  was 
the  work  of  Douglas,  his  great  rival,  who  had  so 
far  outstripped  him  in  the  political  race.  Now 
that  rival,  hitherto  victorious  and  quite  unas 
sailable,  had,  doubtless  in  pursuit  of  the  Presi 
dency,  thrown  away  a  part  of  his  armor,  and 
rendered  himself  vulnerable.  Lincoln  seizes  his 
opportunity,  and  makes  a  strong  speech  at  Peoria, 
October  16th,  1854,  against  Douglas  and  his 
Repeal.  This  speech  strikes  the  key-note  of  the 
time :  the  spread  of  slavery  in  the  Territories 
must  be  stopped,  and  the  Union  must  become 
Free-State  producing. 

This  we  may  consider  the  beginning  of    a  new 


212          THE  TE^  Y8AKS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

epoch  for  Lincoln,  but  Douglas  could  not  be 
reached  yet,  as  his  Senatorial  term  had  still  four 
years  to  run.  In  1855  there  has  been  preserved 
a  little  speech  of  Lincoln's  which  was  delivered, 
it  is  said,  to  two  persons' only,  but  which  is 
very  suggestive.  "  All  seems  dead,  but  the  Age  is 
not  yet  dead  .  .  .  the  World  does  move.  And 
now  let  us  adjourn  and  appeal  to  the  PEOPLE." 
These  emphasized  words  indicate  what  Lincoln 
was  deeply  pondering  over:  the  Spirit  of  the 
Age,  the  World's  Progress,  which  must  be  em 
bodied  in  the  People,  and  through  them  realized. 
Lincoln's  time,  however,  was  not  yet;  in  the 
exciting  Presidential  campaign  of  1856  he  does 
not  seem  to  have  done  anything  noteworthy, 
though  he  received  in  the  Republican  convention 
of  that  year  110  votes  for  the  Vice-Presidency. 
But  in  the  following  year  (  1857)  occurred  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  which  gave  him  the  next  great 
push  toward  his  coming  career.  Accordingly  he 
sets  forth  his  views  in  a  speech  delivered  at  Spring 
field,  Ills.,  June  26th,  1857,  which  was  an 
answer  to  a  speech  of  Douglas,  made  two  weeks 
before  in  the  same  place,  while  he  had  not  yet 
broken  with  the  Buchanan  Administration. 
Lincoln  declared  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision 
must  be  reversed,  not  by  force  but  legally.  The 
Supreme  Court  had  repeatedly  reversed  itself. 
Moreover  the  People  who  had  created  the  Con- 


THE  NORTH.  —  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.        213 

stitution   and  its    Supreme    Court,  can  constitu 
tionally  re-make  both. 

But  the  real  conflict  opens  in  Chicago,  July 
9th,  1858,  with  the  speech  of  Douglas,  who  is 
now  to  fight  for  his  political  life  with  Lincoln, 
who  is  also  on  the  ground  and  answers  him  the 
next  day.  Another  preliminary  tussle  they  have 
at  Bloomington  when  Lincoln  challenges  the 
doughty  Douglas  to  a  series  of  seven  joint  de 
bates,  which  have  had  such  a  lasting  historical 
significance. 

O 

V.  Douglas  does  not  make  the  grand  tran 
sition  of  his  time  in  company  with  the  World- 
Spirit,  which  we  may  formulate  as  the  transition 
from  special  Free-Stateism  to  universal  Free- 
Stateism.  He  would  now  have  Kansas  a  Free- 
State,  since  it  has  so  voted ;  but  he  would  not 
declare  that  in  the  future  all  Territories  of  the 
national  domain  must  become  Free-States,  and 
thus  make  the  Union  henceforth  Free-State 
producing.  He  says  he  does  not  care  whether 
Slavery  be  voted  up  or  down  in  the  Terri 
tories.  When  we  recollect  that  even  at  this 
time  a  majority  of  Free-State  men  in  Kansas 
were  Douglas  Democrats,  and  were  just  in 
the  act  of  smiting  with  such  unanimity 
and  fury  that  fire-breathing  dragon  of  their 
land  called  the  Lecompton  Constitution,  we 
can  imagine  what  a  chill  was  sent  through 
their  hearts,  as  the  words  of  their  leader  were 


214          THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

wafted  to  them  on  the  winds  from  the  prairies  of 
Illinois  :  I  don't  care  —  don't  care  at  all  for  what 
you  care  most.  Such  an  icy  blast  soon  made 
Kansas  republican.  And  the  hearts  of  the 
Douglas  democrats  in  Illinois  did  care  too,  and 
felt  the  generous  warmth  of  Lincoln's  fervent 
appeal  on  this  point,  and  many  a  one  thawed  out 
before  the  end  of  the  campaign.  For  after  all 
they  likewise  shared  in  the  great  movement  of 
their  time,  and  Lincoln  became  their  voice,  even 
if  they  were  unconscious  of  the  fact.  So  we 
have  to  say  that  Lincoln  ypoke  far  more  power 
fully  to  the  Folk-Soul  of  his  State  than  Douglas, 
and  knew  that  he  was  saying  the  epoch-making 
word  of  his  country  and  age. 

As  the  debate  advanced  toward  its  close,  Lin 
coln  became  loftier  in  thought  and  expression, 
and  obtained  a  clearer  view  of  the  mighty  forces 
at  work  of  which  he  had  become  the  chosen 
mouth-piece.  His  last  speech,  which  was  de 
livered  at  Alton,  is  the  best  of  all  his  speeches, 
and  of  it  the  last  part  is  the  best  part,  in  which 
he  returns  to  and  comments  upon  the  paragraph 
of  his  former  speech  declaring  that  the  Union 
cannot  remain  half  slave  and  half  free.  He 
affirms  that  this  agitation  on  slavery  is  not  the 
work  of  the  politicians  seeking  to  get  office,  as 
Douglas  had  intimated.  On  the  contrary  there 
is  "  an  irresistible  Power  "  which  is  stirring  the 
People  and  will  give  them  no  peace.  It  is  not  to 


THE  NORTH.  —  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.        215 

be  stilled  by  just  saying :  Let  us  stop  talking 
about  slavery,  stop  being  agitated.  The  People 
are  lashed  into  this  excitement  by  "  a  mighty 
deep-seated  Power  that  somehow  operates  on  the 
minds  of  men,  exciting  and  stirring  them  up  in 
every  avenue  of  society  —  in  politics,  in  religion, 
in  literature,  in  morals,  in  all  the  manifold  rela 
tions  of  life"  (same  speech).  What  is  this 
Power  irresistible,  mightier  than  the  People  them 
selves,  which  they  have  to  obey,  and  which 
Lincoln  seeks  here  to  bring  to  utterance,  thus 
making  them  conscious  of  the  task  laid  upon 
them?  Variously  named  the  Spirit  of  the  Age, 
the  voice  of  Humanity,  the  World-Spirit,  yea 
God  Himself,  it  is  indeed  "  a  Power  irresistible," 
compelling  the  nation,  even  though  unwilling, 
to  do  its  behest. 

There  is  no  escaping,  then,  from  this  irresist 
ible  Power  which  seems  to  have  its  grip  upon 
every  human  soul  in  the  United  States.  But  how 
does  this  Power  manifest  itself  in  the  human 
soul?  Through  the  moral  conviction,  through 
the  sense  of  Right  and  Wrong.  Here  again  Lin 
coln  reaches  to  the  bottom,  in  a  deep-toned  pas 
sage:  "The  real  issue  in  this  controversy —  the 
one  pressing  upon  every  mind —  is  the  sentiment 
on  the  part  of  one  class  that  looks  upon  the  in 
stitution  of  slavery  as  a  wrong  and  of  another 
class  that  does  not  look  upon  it  as  a  wrong." 
But  even  this  latter  class  cannot  avoid  thinking 


216  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PAET II. 

about  it,  being  agitated  over  it,  since  they  too 
are  in  the  clutch  of  an  "irresistible  Power." 

It  is  true  that  Lincoln  clings  simply  to  the 
prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Territories  by  Con 
gress.  He  does  not  propose  to  disturb  slavery 
in  the  States  where  it  is  already  established. 
And  he  maintains  that  the  South  has  constitu 
tionally  the  right  to  a  Fugitive  Slave  Law, 
much  as  he  dislikes  it.  He  holds  himself  aloof 
from  any  assertion  of  the  Higher  Law,  as 
opposed  to  the  Constitution.  Thus  he  shows 
himself  through  and  through  an  institutional 
man,  and  thereby  keeps  himself  in  tune  with  the 
American  Folk-Soul,  whose  very  life  pulses 
through  its  institutions,  making  them  and  being 
made  by  them.  At  the  same  time  Lincoln  is 
profoundly  moral,  appealing  to  the  sentiment  of 
right  and  wrong,  whose  impress  is  in  the  con 
science  of  every  individual. 

Thus  Lincoln  aligns  his  party  for  the  imme 
diate  contest.  Still  he  has  a  vaster  outlook,  a 
larger  hope,  which  he  brings  repeatedly  before 
the  minds  of  his  hearers  —  nothing  less  than 
*'  the  ultimate  extinction  "  of  slavery  itself. 
This,  however,  is  not  to  take  place  by  revolution, 
but  "  it  will  be  done  peacably ;  there  will  be  no 
war,  no  violence."  Moreover  it  will  be  a  long 
time  coming.  In  1858  Lincoln  saw  the  end  of 
slavery  and  prophesied  it,  but  it  came  with  a  rush 
and  a  crash  which  he  never  imagined.  Qne  of 


THE  NORTH.  —  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.        217 

his  thrusts  is  that  Douglas  "  looks  to  no  end  of 
the  institution  of  slavery,''  which  was  the  im 
perative  decree  of  the  Spirit  of  the  Age,  as  we 
all  now  see. 

The  question  of  freedom  in  the  present  issue 
bottoms  on  the  question  of  labor,  which  fact  Lin 
coln  duly  notes.  The  Free-State  means  the  Free- 
Labor  State,  as  distinct  from  the  Slave-Labor 
State.  The  grand  violation  of  human  right  lies 
in  the  spirit  which  (usiug  Lincoln's  words)  says: 
"  You  work  and  toil  and  earn  bread,  and  I'll  eat 
it."  The  negro,  though  an  inferior,  has  that 
common  right  of  humanity  to  the  fruit  of  his 
own  labor.  As  a  slave  he  has  no  Will ,  since  it 
and  its  products  belong  to  another.  Thus  the 
speaker  set  the  audience  to  thinking  upon  the 
fundamental  nature  of  man  himself,  and  to  de 
fining  his  freedom  —  not  an  easy  task  even  for 
the  trained  thinker.  In  general,  however,  it  was 
felt  that  free  labor  was  the  right  of  every  man 
of  every  race  and  that  this  right  must  be  secured 
to  him  by  the  State. 

Putting  these  thoughts  together  into  a  kind  of 
formula,  we  would  say  that  Lincoln  appealed  to 
the  moral  conviction  or  conscience,  which  was 
the  impress  of  the  World-Spirit  upon  the  Folk- 
Soul  of  the  time.  Moreover  Lincoln  in  this 
regard  was  aware  of  what  he  was  doing,  and 
made  the  People  aware  of  their  participation  in 
the  great  movement  of  the  age.  This  he  did  in 


218  THE  TEX  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

such  simple  transparent  speech,  that  few  appre 
ciated  the  depth  of  his  thought  till  the  Future 
with  its  commentary  of  events  brought  out  his 
full  meaning.  At  the  same  time  he  was  well 

O 

aware  of  the  limitations  of  the  moral  spirit,  of 
its  danger  of  running  to  excess  and  becoming 
negative  and  anarchic.  So  he  drew  the  line  of 
justice  on  anti -slavery ism  as  well  as  on  pro- 
slaveryism,  as  if  he  held  the  scales  of  the  great 
Justiciary. 

It  may  be  said,  therefore,  that  Lincoln  has 
moralized  the  conflict  against  slavery,  in  contrast 
with  Douglas,  who  does  not  care,  and  in 
contrast  with  the  South  which  is  its  champion. 
On  the  other  hand  he  has  institutionalized  this 
same  conflict  in  contrast  with  Seward  and  the 
Higher  Law,  as  well  as  in  contrast  with  the  New 
England  extremists.  Still  further,  Lincoln  has 
shown  a  positive  and  pacific  way  toward  the 
extinction  of  slavery,  in  contrast  with  a 
destructive  and  revolutionary  way.  Is  there  any 
representative  of  the  latter?  Who  is  he? 

In  response  to  the  question  a  man  steps  forth 
who  during  this  Illinois  debate  has  been 
secretly  planning  an  armed  attack  upon  the 
Slave-States,  a  man  who  has  already  appeared 
before  us  seveval  times  in  Kansas  —  old  John 
Brown  of  Ossawatomie. 


THE  NORTH.  —JOHN  BROWN.  219 


3obn  Brown. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  we  insert  what  seems 
hardly  more  than  an  episode  or  colossal  object- 
lesson  for  illustrating  the  principles  which  are 
specially  at  work  in  the  present  Ten  Years' 
War.  This  is  the  world-famous  foray  of  John 
Brown  into  Virginia  at  the  head  of  an  army  of 
eighteen  men  for  the  purpose  of  destroying 
slavery.  The  act  gets  its  historic  place  and 
meaning  when  it  is  seen  to  be  the  negative  side 
to  Lincoln's  way  of  treating  the  same  question, 
as  he  outlines  it  in  his  debate  with  Douglas. 
John  Brown  is  the  antitype  of  Lincoln.  While 
this  debate  was  taking  place  in  1858,  Brown 
was  planning  his  first  invasion  of  the  South 
on  a  large  scale,  but  he  was  thwarted  by  an  un 
toward  disclosure  of  his  design.  A  year 
later  he  carried  out  his  plan,  which  event 
in  its  results  gave  a  startling  confirmation 
to  Lincoln's  view.  For  that  moral  element 
which  he  had  so  decisively  enunciated,  and  so 
carefully  reconciled  with  institutions,  breaks 
loose  in  John  Brown  from  its  moorings,  and 
starts  on  its  mad  career,  landing  its  follower  in 
anarchy  and  bringing  him  speedily  to  the  scaf 
fold.  If  Lincoln's  world-historical  career  from 
start  to  finish  tells  all  future  time  How  to  do  it, 


220  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

John  Brown's  has  just  the  contrary  tenor,  warn 
ing  the  ages  How  not  to  do  it.  There  is  no 
doubt,  nevertheless,  about  the  exceeding  force 
and  sublimity  of  this  warning,  so  that  not  a  few 
men  of  eminence  have  appar  ently  regarded  it  as 
more  significant  than  the  actual  deed  of  libera 
tion —  Brown's  total  lack  of  success  being  the 
grand  success  of  the  epoch.  His  career  from 
Kansas  to  Virginia  is  indeed  a  drama  of  crush 
ing  power  and  reality,  a  true  tragedy  we  may 
regard  it,  rounding  itself  out  into  a  complete 
cycle  of  retaliation. 

A  retributive  atmosphere  hovers  around  John 
Brown,  and  gives  him  the  breath  of  his  spiritual 
life.  This  atmosphere  he  takes  with  him  and  is 
able  to  impart  its  influence  to  others  who  may 
be  ready  to  absorb  it.  The  law  of  Retaliation  is 
his  most  coercive  principle,  often  transforming 
for  him  the  innocent  into  the  guilty.  He,  a 
father,  with  his  two  sons,  slew  a  father  and 
two  sons  by  the  name  of  Doyle  in  the  Potta- 
watomie  butchery,  not  because  they  had  com 
mitted  any  crime,  but  because  they  were 
pro-slavery  in  sentiment,  and  were  selected 
by  him  to  pay  a  bloody  penalty.  The  God  of 
Vengeance  had  decreed  their  death  in  return  for 
the  death  of  others,  with  which  they  had  nothing 
to  do.  Did  Brown  ever  think  that  Retaliation 
works  both  ways,  and  that  it  might  come  back 
to  him  from  the  other  side,  or  perchance  from 


THE  NOE TH.  —  JOHN  BEO  WN.  22 1 

that  invisible  Nemesis  which  balances  so  impar 
tially  the  deed  of  blood  against  the  deed  of 
blood,  often  with  arithmetical  exactness?  The 
three  slayers,  father  and  two  sons,  slay  them 
selves  in  slaying  a  father  and  two  sons,  to  the 
eye  of  Retribution.  That  indeed  will  be  the 
conclusion  of  the  tragedy.  Could  Brown  not 
see  in  his  own  wife  and  the  mother  of  his  sons, 
the  wife  and  mother  of  the  slain  Doyles,  and  pos 
sibly  hear  her  voice?  That  voice  will  hunt  him 
out  on  the  day  of  his  doom,  pursuing  him  even 
up  to  judgment,  when  two  of  his  sons  have  fallen 
in  death  under  his  eyes,  and  he  is  about  to  tread 
the  scaffold  in  bloody  requital  for  blood.  Thus 
the  drama  of  John  Brown  will  also  have  its 
Cassandra,  whose  tragic  strain  will  rise  up  and 
float  over  the  very  gallows  on  which  he  hangs. 

I.  Already  several  times  John  Brown  has 
appeared  before  the  reader  in  the  Kansas  troubles, 
which  undoubtedly  nourished  and  brought  to 
maturity  the  deepest  element  of  his  character, 
hitherto  unrealized  for  want  of  a  suitable  envi 
ronment.  We  have  seen  him  protesting  at 
Lawrence  against  the  Wakerusa  peace.  After 
the  Sack  of  Lawrence  it  has  been  noted  how  he 
starts  out  on  his  career  of  retaliation,  whose  first 
fruit  is  the  butchery  of  the  pro-slavery  settlers 
at  Pottawatoniie,  and  whose  second  fruit  is  the 
bloody  requital  on  the  anti-slavery  settlers  at 
Marais  des  Cygnes.  Revenge  begets  revenge, 


222  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PAET II. 

and  so  Brown  next  invades  Missouri  from  Kan 
sas,  captures  eleven  slaves,  letting  some  slave- 
holding  blood  in  the  process,  and  lands  them 
safely  in  Canada  (March  12th,  1859),  after 
eluding  many  attempts  to  take  him  on  the  way. 
This  success  now  came  to  the  aid  of  his  former 
plan  of  freeing  the  slaves  of  Virginia,  so  that  it 
turned  to  a  kind  of  fixed  idea  from  which  his 
half -crazy  soul  was  not  to  be  swerved  even  by 
friends,  to  whom  it  seemed  what  it  really  was, 
madness.  His  answer  was  always,  "  If  God 
be  for  us,  who  can  be  against  us?'  The  Old 
Testament  miracles  were  to  be  re-enacted  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  and  he  was  their  divinely 
chosen  performer. 

Brown  was  a  Puritan  of  Puritans  and  of 
course  his  ancestor,  Peter  Brown,  had  come  over 
in  the  Mayflower.  Stern  and  unyielding  on  the 
main  point,  Brown  could  compromise  on  minor 
matters;  indeed  some  of  his  transactions  look 
as  if  he  could  play  and  say  double  in  order  to 
gain  his  supreme  end.  One  of  the  most  curious 
as  well  as  obscure  portions  of  his  Kansas  career 
is  his  dealings  with  J.  II.  Lane,  who  certainly 
was  no  Puritan,  being  notoriously  loose  in 
money  matters,  in  private  morals,  and  in  telling 
the  truth.  Yet  Lane  and  Brown  agreed  in  one 
cardinal  point :  blood-revenge  upon  Slave-State 
men.  Both  were  opposed  to  the  peaceful  means 
which  Robinson  employed.  Lane  proposed  to 


THE  NORTH.  —  JOHN  BROWN.  223 

destroy  the  whole  Lecompton  Convention  and  to 
assail  the  United  States  Government,  in  which 
purpose  he  was  foiled  by  the  firm  stand  of  the 
people  of  Lawrence.  He  got  hold  of  the  militia 
and  established  a  secret  order  of  thugs  called 
Danites,  through  whom  he  hoped  to  put  out  of 
the  way  all  his  enemies,  including  Robinson. 
His  ultimate  motive  is  not  clear,  but  it  looks  as 
if  he  aimed  to  precipitate  a  war  in  which  he 
would  be  dictator.  His  great  foe  he  deemed 
to  be  that  peace  which  was  beginning  to  dawn 
upon  Kansas,  whose  troubles  had  attracted  many 
restless  spirits  like  him  from  the  whole  country. 
Of  this  element  Lane  was  the  born  leader,  who 
would  not  let  the  Furies  of  retaliation  go  to 
sleep  on  either  side.  Bloody  carnage  on  the  one 
hand,  bloody  revenge  on  the  other,  crimsoned 
the  Border  —  the  retributive  outcome  of  those 
early  Missouri  invasions.  It  was  a  hideous  car 
nival  of  the  snake-haired  Erinyes,  born  of  the 
human  demon  when  he  gets  to  be  gore-loving, 
the  instigators  as  well  as  the  avengers  of  the 
sanguinary  deeds  of  men. 

In  these  deeds  there  is  no  doubt  that  Brown 
participated  with  his  own  hands,  and  received  an 
emphatic  part  of  his  training  from  that  ensan 
guined  Border.  Like  Lane  he  did  not  wish  for 
peace,  and  was  ready  to  lock  horns  with  Uncle 
Sam,  as  we  shall  see  by  his  later  career.  So 
there  came  about  that  strange  coalition  between 


224  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART II. 

the  Kansas  Mephistopheles  and  the  New  England 
Puritan,  far  stranger  than  that  other  coalition 
in  American  History  "between  the  Puritan  and 
the  blackleg,"  as  John  Randolph  put  it.  There 
is  little  doubt  that  Lane  used  Brown  as  a  cats- 
paw  for  stirring  up  trouble  when  things  were 
getting  too  quiet.  We  can  still  see  Mephistoph 
eles  eyeing  the  Puritan  and  taking  his  measure 
secretly:  This  is  the  man  whose  fanaticism  I 
can  use,  even  if  it  brings  him  to  the  gallows. 
But  Brown  never  won  Lane,  Mephistopheles  was 
altogether  too  shifty  ever  to  get  caught  in  such 
a  scrape  as  that  of  Harper's  Ferry. 

In  his  own  circle,  however,  Brown  was  an  au 
tocrat  of  the  first  water.  Nobody  could  be  right 
except  him,  freedom  of  opinion  he  could  as  little 
tolerate  as  could  an  Oriental  potentate.  He  be 
lieved  himself  inspired  of  God  directly;  what 
can  mortal  man  have  to  say  against  the  Divine 
mandate?  He  was  the  old  Hebrew  theocrat  in 
carnate ;  God  alone  rules  and  speaks,  but  of 
course  through  John  Brown.  Over  a  few  he 
attained  absolute  sway,  bat  on  the  whole  he 
lacked  power  of  co-operation  with  others. 

II.  There  must  always  be  made  a  sharp  distinc 
tion  between  John  Brown's  method  and  his  deter 
mining  purpose.  This  purpose  was  the  extinction 
of  slaverv,  but  his  method  was  that  of  violence 
and  violation  of  Law  and  Constitution.  Thus 
his  purpose  was  the  same  as  that  of  Lincoln  and 


THE  NOR  TH.  —  JOHN  BBO  WN.  225 

of  the  North  generally,  but  his  method  was 
completely  the  reverse,  since  it  was  anti-insti 
tutional,  assailing  slavery  in  the  States  where 
this  was  established  by  law,  and  seeking  to 
free  all  American  Africa  on  the  spot,  utterly 
regardless  of  consequences.  The  whole  insti 
tutional  fabric  of  the  country  he  would  pull 
down  upon  our  heads,  acting  under  the  con 
viction  that  slavery  was  wrong.  This  moral  con 
viction  was  deeply  shared  by  Lincoln,  but  his 
method  was  to  keep  morality  from  its  inevitable 
negative  bent  by  reconciling  it  with  institutions, 
which  it  can  come  to  regard  as  its  greatest  foe. 
Lincoln  was  a  conscientious  soul, if  there  ever  was 
one,  but  he  knew  that  Conscience  could  develop 
into  the  destroyer  of  Man  and  God,  the  terrible 
experience  of  which  fact  this  age  has  learned 
through  the  anarchist,  the  conscientious  destroyer 
of  the  institutional  world  and  of  himself.  The 
deeply  roused  moral  force  of  the  North  had  its 
terrible  danger :  behold  it  embodied  and  sweep 
ing  to  the  deed  in  John  Brown.  A  great  object- 
lesson  we  may  deem  it,  given  in  the  school  of  the 
World-Spirit,  of  whom  the  Nation  is  now  taking 
some  preliminary  instruction  useful  for  its  com 
ing  task. 

III.  The  North,  as  a  whole,  recoiled  with 
bated  breath  in  a  kind  of  terror  from  the  image 
of  itself  or  of  a  part  of  itself  held  up  before  it 
in  John  Brown.  But  what  about  the  South? 

15 


226  THE  TEX  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

Was  there  any  object-lesson  for  it  too  in  this 
school?  John  Brown's  method  was  that  of 
violence,  regardless  of  the  Union  and  Consti 
tution,  openly  revolutionary.  Is  not  the  South 
threatening  to  employ  the  same  method,  though 
of  course  for  a  wholly  different  purpose?  Many 
times  have  its  leaders  menaced  the  North  with 
the  dissolution  of  the  Union  unless  their  view 
of  the  Constitution  was  accepted,  their  will  suf 
fered  to  be  done.  John  Brown  is  then  a  striking 
prefigurement  of  what  lies  deep  in  the  Folk- 
Soul  of  the  South ;  a  picture,  hideous  she  may 
well  call  it,  yet  painting  in  strong  colors  her  very 
self  on  its  negative  side,  yea  prophetic  of  what 
she  is  going  to  do  within  two  years'  time.  So 
soon  will  she  turn  John  Brown  herself  employ 
ing  his  method  to  right  what  she  deems  her 
wrongs,  invoking  revolution  as  he  has  invoked 
it  and  at  last  getting  the  return  of  the  Deed  as 
he*  gets  it  even  from  her.  Nor  can  we  help 
taking  a  special  look  at  Virginia,  more  than  any 
other  State  the  mother  of  the  Union,  whose 
soil  has  been  invaded  by  John  Brown,  and  who 
has  to  try  him  for  his  deed.  «* Guilty  of  trea 
son,"  is  the  verdict  of  the  jury,  and  the  man  of 
guilt  is  sentenced  to  be  hung.  The  trial  Brown 
himself  pronounced  to  be  fair,  and  his  act  duly 
meets  with  justice  according  to  the  law.  But 
now  comes  the  question:  Will  Virginia  herself 
ever  be  guilty  of  treason?  Will  she  too  be 


THE  NORTH.  —  JOHN  BRO  WN.  227 

brought  to  defy  and  to  assail  with  arms  the 
Union  and  Constitution,  thus  becoming  John 
Brown  in  her  turn?  The  act  is  done,  and  the 
history  of  it  is  recorded  and  known  to  all  the 
world.  Virginia  will  herself  enact  the  same  deed 
whose  doer  she  no  w  hangs,  and  quite  all  the  lead 
ing  men  here  present  executing  Bro  wn  as  traitor 
will  turn  traitors  themselves,  using  essentially 
the  same  means  but  with  a  wholly  different  end, 
and  most  of  them  will  perish  in  the  shock  of 
the  conflict  they  themselves  have  generated. 
Could  Virginia  but  look  into  her  own  soul,  as 
she  gazes  on  the  execution  of  Brown,  and  there 
behold  her  own  possible  self  germinating  in  the 
future  deed !  But  that  gift  seems  to  have  been 
denied  to  her  and  to  the  South  as  well ;  she  could 
not  see  her  negative  part  incorporate  in  John 
Brown,  though  the  North  saw  its  negative  side 
in  him  and  realized  the  danger.  The  South  had 
no  leader  like  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Some  2,000  Virginia  soldiers  were  present  at 
the  execution  of  Brown  to  prevent  any  attempt 
at  rescue,  which  the  prisoner  himself  did  not  wish. 
Who  were  some  of  these  men?  The  Governor 
of  the  State  was  there,  Wise,  and  also  his  son, 
who  was  a  Colonel  of  a  troop,  and  who  perished 
in  the  war  against  the  Union .  Wilkes  Booth  was 
there  as  a  private  in  a  Richmond  company,  the 
future  assassin  of  the  President  of  the  Re-united 
States.  Robert  E.  Lee  was  there  and  was  the 


228  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  -  PART II. 

military  head,  the  future  commander-in-chief  of 
the  armies  marshaled  against  the  United  States. 
It  may  be  said  that  those  2,000  men,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  have  it  already  in  their  hearts  to  do 
what  John  Brown  has  done,  are  themselves 
unconsciously  John  Browns  in  spirit  and  will 
soon  become  such  in  the  deed.  One  cannot  help 
querying  about  these  troops  marching  and  coun 
termarching  with  drums  beating  and  colors 
flying  in  serried  lines  around  John  Brown's  scaf 
fold  :  Is  there  a  single  soul  of  you  who  has  any 
presentiment  of  what  you  are  doing  and  of  what 
you  really  are?  Is  there  one  among  you  who 
has  faintly  whispered  to  himself  amid  the  tramp 
of  feet  and  clatter  of  arms :  I  feel  John  Brown 
lurking  in  me,  and  see  his  flitting  ghost  entering 
my  very  soul  and  installing  itself  there  in  spite 
of  myself.  I  on  my  part  am  getting  ready  to  do 
what  he  has  done,  and  I  am  to  receive  the 
penalty  which  I  inflict  upon  him  for  that  deed. 
Here  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  that  approaching 
tragedy  of  Virginia  which  makes  her  the  most 
conspicuous  figure  in  the  war,  with  the  one 
great  exception,  Lincoln.  Without  question  the 
most  influential  State  in  the  Union  politically, 
the  most  productive  of  Great  Men  as  builders  and 
defenders  of  institutions  in  the  infancy  of  the 
Republic,  she  is  now  at  the  turning-point  of  her 
career,  and  is  becoming  anti-institutional,  getting 
ready  to  assail  what  she  once  built  up.  The 


THE  NOR TH.  —  JOHN  BROWN.  229 

truth  is  soon  to  be  made  manifest  that  she 
has  already  brought  forth  a  new  set  of  Great 
Men,  not  statesmen  now  but  soldiers,  the  one 
seeking  to  tear  down  what  the  other  has  con 
structed. 

Nor  would  this  thought  be  complete  without 
mentioning  the  awful  Nemesis  which  will  smite 
her,  slaughtering  her  sons  and  rendering  her 
desolate.  Is  she  not  now  punishing  with  death 
the  treason,  that  is,  the  anti-institutional  deed  of 
John  Brown?  Can  she  read  the  lesson  which 
she  herself  has  written  in  blazing  letters  on  that 
scaffold :  Whoever  doeth  thus  will  suffer  like 
wise?  And  there  lies  the  tragic  guilt  of  Vir 
ginia  ;  the  law  of  her  own  deed  declared  here  in 
the  punishment  of  John  Brown,  is  what  she  is 
going  to  violate,  and  of  which  she  will  suffer 
the  penalty.  The  execution  of  John  Brown 
means  more  to  Virginia,  is  more  deeply  connected 
with  her  destiny  than  it  is  with  that  of  the  North. 
Her  own  tragic  doom  is  foretold  in  the  very 
justice  which  she  so  dramatically  executes  upon 
John  Brown.  And  when  the  scene  had  passed 
away,  and  her  troops  had  gone  from  the  execu 
tion  to  their  homes,  the  deepest  problem  of  her 
existence  was  graven  upon  her  heart:  Shall  I 
ever  do  thus  and  provoke  from  the  Eternal 
Powers  my  own  penalty? 

It  is  true  that  many  Virginians  have  said  and 
still  say  and  seek  to  prove  that  their  people  com- 


230  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAK.—  PABTII. 

mitted  no  treason  in  the  act  of  secession  and  war. 
Of  course  they  define  the  term  treason  in  their 
own  way.  But  Virginia  certainly  engaged  "  in 
levying  war  against"  the  United  States, 
"  adhering  to  their  enemies,  giving  them  aid  and 
comfort."  (Constitution,  Art.  Ill,  Sec.  Ill, 
Cl.  I.)  Some  have  even  denied  that  the  con 
duct  of  Virginia  and  the  South  was  revolutionary ; 
really,  it  is  said,  they  were  seeking  to  preserve 
the  Union  by  overthrowing  it.  But  the  terrible 
penalty  of  their  deed  permits  no  such  interpre 
tation. 

IV.  There  will  always  be  two  opposing  judg 
ments,  two  at  least  and  perhaps  more,  upon  John 
Brown,  that  of  the  moral  and  that  of  the  insti 
tutional  man.  He  will  be  a  hero  to  the  mind 
which  is  limited  to  itself  as  the  absolute 
determiner  of  conduct,  against  the  established 
social  and  political  order.  On  the  other  hand 
the  man  who  believes  in  institutions  can  never 
believe  in  John  Brown.  Kansas  would  have  been 
a  Free-State,  and  the  war  between  the  North  and 
the  South  would  have  been  fought,  if  he  had 
never  lived.  And  yet  he  has  his  place  in  the 
movement.  His  fate  gives  its  color,  though  not 
the  direction  to  the  events  of  the  time.  It 
clarified  the  Folk-Soul  not  simply  upon  what 
was  to  be  done  but  upon  the  way  in  which  it 
could  be  done  with  success.  It  compelled  every 
thinking  man  in  the  North  to  distinguish  between 


THE  NORTH.  —  JOHN  BROWN.  231 

the  two  kinds  of  opposition  to  slavery,  the  one 
through  and  the  other  against  the  Constitution. 
Two  opposite  ways  or  methods,  we  may  deem 
them,  the  positive  and  the  negative,  or  the  insti 
tutional  and  the  anarchic.  The  People  became 
conscious  of  both,  weighed  them  and  emphatically 
chose  the  institutional  way.  A  great  training 
lay  in  this,  an  object-lesson  we  have  called  it, 
whose  result  was  seen  in  the  platform  of  the 
Republican  party  the  following  year,  denouncing 
the  lawless  invasion  of  any  State  as  "  among  the 
gravest  of  crimes." 

The  South  ought  to  have  taken  the  same  les 
son,  having  the  same  need  of  it  on  its  side.  It 
punished  John  Brown  for  violation  of  Law  and 
Constitution,  which  surely  ought  to  have  warned 
it  against  committing  any  such  violation  itself. 
And  yet  strangely  that  is  just  what  it  will  do. 
Such  a  difference  develops  between  the  two  sec 
tions  in  regard  to  the  great  object-lesson  of 
John  Brown  held  up  before  both  by  the  World- 
Spirit.  The  one  will  pursue  its  end  (the  delim 
itation  of  slavery)  constitutionally,  the  other  will 
pursue  its  end  (propagation  of  slavery)  anti- 
const  itutionally.  The  South  in  its  method, 
though  not  in  its  purpose,  takes  John  Brown  as 
its  model —  a  thing  which  the  North  very  de 
cidedly  refuses  to  do.  Even  the  prophecy  has 
been  uttered  that  the  South  will  yet  raise  a 
monument  to  John  Brown  as  her  deliverer  at 


232  THE  TEN  YEAES'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

Harper's  Ferry  on  the  spot  where  she  once  exe 
cuted  him  as  a  felon.  Such  a  result  seems  not 
very  likely  at  present;  still  the  Southern  sol 
diers,  marching  on  Washington  and  seeking  to 
destroy  the  government  of  the  Constitution  and 
Union,  could  have  sung  with  quite  as  much  pro 
priety  as  the  Northern  soldiers  the  famous 
refrain : 

"John  Brown's  body  lies  a-mouldering  in  the  grave, 
But  his  soul  goes  marching  on." 

Even  the  history  of  this  song  bears  in  it  the 
tragic  note  of  Nemesis  which  the  song  itself  so 
impressively  utters,  and  those  from  whose  hearts 
it  first  gushed  forth  in  exultant  strains  had  the 
strange  lot  of  giving  a  most  striking  fulfillment  in 
their  own  destiny  of  what  they  sang.  It  is  said 
to  have  originated  in  the  Twelfth  Massachusetts 
Regiment,  whose  Colonel  was  Fletcher  Webster, 
and  to  have  burst  out  in  a  kind  of  irresistible 
spontaneousness,  when  these  New  England  sol 
diers  trod  the  soil  of  Virginia  at  Alexandria, 
when  the  locality  and  the  events  called  up  the  old 
Puritan  in  the  minds  of  these  children  of  the 
Puritans.  But  the  song  of  Nemesis  was  also 
sung  on  the  other  side,  not  in  the  same  words 
but  certainly  with  tremendous  effect,  as  the  fol 
lowing  record  shows:  This  Regiment,  which 
inarched  down  the  streets  of  Boston  10i>0  strong 
going  to  the  war,  returned  home  at  the  end  of 


THE  NOR  TH.  —  JOHN  BE  0  WN.  2  33 

their  service  with  some  80  men,  their  Colonel, 
the  son  of  Daniel  Webster,  having  fallen  on  the 
field  of  battle.  At  the  view  of  these  survivors 
the  song  of  John  Brown  gets  a  new  meaning;  in 
its  universal  import  it  is  seen  to  embrace  both 
sides,  and  his  soul  which  goes  marching  on,  be 
comes  the  vengeful  ima^e  of  that  tragic  Neme- 

O  O  <— ' 

sis  who  washes  out  national  guilt  impartially  in 
the  blood  of  the  Nation. 

V.  The  North  did  not  wish  to  adopt  John- 
Brownism,  unless  driven  to  it  by  the  South. 
Lincoln  certainly  desired  the  ultimate  extinction 
of  slavery,  but  its  Destroyer  was  to  be  evolution, 
not  revolution.  Still  violence  had  to  be  met  by 
violence,  and  war  brought  him  at  last  to  the  point 
of  saying  that  "measures  otherwise  unconsti 
tutional  might  become  lawful  by  becoming  indis 
pensable  to  the  preservation  of  the  Constitution 
through  the  preservation  of  the  Nation."  He 
was  pushed  .to  the  point  at  which  he  saw  that  he 
had  to  violate  the  Constitution  in  order  to  save 
it  —  violate  it  in  part  or  in  a  clause  to  save  it  as 
a  whole  with  the  Nation  behind  it.  Who  pushed 
him  to  such  an  extreme?  The  South  with  its 
armed  resistance  to  Law  and  Constitution,  with 
its  John-Brownism,  as  we  may  call  it  in  this  con 
nection,  which  compelled  Lincoln  very  unwill 
ingly,  as  all  now  acknowledge,  to  resort  to  a 
counteracting  John-Brownism.  In  this  as  in 
everything  the  North  followed  him,  since  he 


234  THE  TEN  TEARS1   WAR. —PART  II. 

drew  the  very  breath  of  his  words  from  the 
Folk-Soul,  which  mightily  responded  to  both  his 
speech  and  action.  So  the  Northern  men  sang 
and  had  to  sing  of  John-Brown's  soul  marching 
on,  since  the  great  majority  of  them  recognized 
his  end  to  be  theirs  from  the  beginning,  and  then 
finally  recognized  that  they  had  to  resort  to  his 
method  also,  in  part  at  least,  being  forced  there 
to  by  the  South 's  precipitate  John-Brownism, 
after  many  shirkings  and  turns  and  attempts  to 
compromise. 

So  we  have  to  grasp  the  relation  of  John 
Brown  equally  to  the  North  and  the  South,  and 
to  their  respective  armies,  both  of  which  may  well 
have  seen  his  disembodied  spirit  stalking  through 
their  ranks  on  the  field  of  carnage.  As  the 
ghost  of  Caesar  rose  up  and  spoke  to  Brutus 
before  the  battle  of  Philippi,  indicating  that  the 
soul  of  mighty  Julius  still  was  marching  on, 
though  his  body  lay  mouldering  in  the  grave,  and 
saying  that  he  was  an  "  evil  spirit  "  to  the  cause 
of  those  who  had  slain  him,  so  the  bodiless  spirit 
of  John  Brown,  if  not  actually  beheld,  was  heard 
singing  through  the  voices  of  thousands  of  em 
battled  men,  and  in  that  way  appeared  to  both 
sides  in  a  kind  of  ghostly  presence. 

And  yet  w^e  see  that  the  march  of  John 
Brown's  soul  is  not  that  of  a  Preserver,  but  of  a 
Destroyer.  His  spirit  is  still  like  that  of  Shake 
speare's  Caesar  "ranging  for  revenge"  with 


THE  NOR  TH.  —  30HN  BR 0  WN.  235 

the  fierce  Nemesis  of  wrong,  "like  Ate  hot 
from  Hell"  also  letting  slip  "the  Dogs  of 
War,"  which  will  lap  the  blood  of  both  sides  to 
satiety.  Thus  can  his  destroying  wraith  be  laid. 
And  thus  John  Brown,  steeped  in  the  Hebrew 
Prophets,  becomes  himself  a  prophecy  of  wrath 
for  North  and  South.  He  has  a  world-historical 
importance  as  forecasting  and  embodying  the 
destructive,  tragic  element  of  the  Great  War, 
in  contrast  with  Lincoln  who  represents  its  pre 
servative,  positive  element,  which  was  at  last 
to  save  both  sides  from  the  bloody  jaws  of  their 
own  devouring  Nemesis.  Since  the  close  of 

o 

the  Great  War  bringing  peace,  reconciliation 
and  a  restored  Union,  the  John  Brown  cult  has 
sensibly  diminished  with  the  clearer  insight  into 
the  historic  meaning  of  his  appearance  and  per 
formance.  Even  Kansas  which  once  saluted  him 
as  Liberator,  and  was  ready  to  take  him  as  its 
Hero,  appears  to  be  getting  less  addicted  to 
John-Brownism,  as  it  grows  older  and  more 
rational.  But  who  can  tell?  Kansas  is  pecu 
liarly  the  stalking  ground  of  John  Brown's 
ghost,  which  seems  to  love  its  old  haunts  during 
life,  rising  and  re-visiting  the  scenes  of  its  first 
achievement  on  the  least  provocation.  His  soul 
begins  again  marching  on  out  there  quite  readily 
still,  though  the  tendency  is  to  lay  the  perturbed 
spirit  of  the  old  slavery-killer,  slavery  itself 
being  dead,  and  the  borderer  having  vanished. 


236  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART II. 

VI.  In  Europe  John  Brown  has  stirred  kin 
dred  minds  to  warm  eulogy.  Of  these  Victor 
Hugo  is  the  best  known,  a  genius  Titanic  but 
certainly  not  well-balanced.  He  looks  upon 
Brown  as  a  kind  of  Christ,  prophesies  the  dis 
ruption  of  the  American  Union  in  consequence 
of  Brown's  assassination,  prefers  the  failure  of 
the  martyr  to  the  success  of  the  patriot,  and 
hence  takes  Brown  rather  than  Washington  as 

o 

his  hero.  The  only  thing  that  need  be  said  in 
reply  is  that  Hugo  has  here  delivered  the  most 
stinging  criticism  upon  himself,  not  only  as 
prophet  but  as  poet.  The  greatest  bards  of  the 
ages  are  positive  and  have  a  positive  theme ;  but 
Hugo's  song  in  its  deepest  phase  can  only  be 
the  apotheosis  of  Negation,  and  celebrate  the 
Destroyer.  He  is  no  world-poet  like  Homer, 
Dante,  Shakespeare,  Goethe;  in  fact  the  latter's 
Faust  contains  essentially  all  of  Hugo's  destruc 
tion,  with  the  construction  in  addition.  So  the 
famous  French  poet  has  very  effectually,  even  if 
unintentionally,  put  himself  down  into  the  second 
rank  of  poetical  genius,  and  his  place  there  ma}' 
be  warmly  contested.  His  admiration  is  for  the 
hero  of  How  not  to  do  it,  while  the  great  man 
who  succeeds  in  doing  the  great  thing,  suffers 
thereby  an  obscuration  of  his  glory,  which  would 
have  been  complete,  had  he  only  failed. 

The  leading  thinkers  of  our  land  at  that  time 
lived  in  New  England,  and  were  quite  confined 


THE  NORTH.  —JOHN  BROWN.  237 

to  the  group  of  Transcendentalists,  who  were 
opposed  to  slavery.  These  spoke  of  John  Brown 
as  the  Saint,  the  Prophet,  the  Hero,  an  Angel 
of  Light.  Emerson  thought  he  would  "  make 
the  gallows  glorious  like  the  cross,"  and  thus  be 
a  second  Christ — which  prediction  of  the  seer 
of  Concord  still  awaits  fulfillment.  These  men 
dwelt  in  a  peculiar  dream-land  about  Boston, 
coiners  of  splendid  phrases,  brilliant  writers  and 
rhetors,  having  developed  a  greater  individual 
culture  than  anywhere  else  in  the  country  if  not 
in  the  world.  As  they,  like  so  many  New  En- 
glanders,  were  born  talking  and  writing,  they 
have  left  us  their  John  Brown  dressed  up  in  a 
great  variety  of  variegated  speech,  which  must 
be  taken  as  the  expression  of  the  best  and  most 
original  minds  that  New  England  has  produced. 
With  all  its  exce  Hence  it  has  no  note  of  nation 
ality  in  it,  no  appreciation  of  institutions.  It 
shows  the  moral  spirit  indeed,  but  in  all  its  nar 
row  pinched-up  individualism,  which  needs  and 
seems  to  be  calling  for  some  great  liberator  who 
will  lead  it  out  of  its  own  self -built  prison  walls, 
the  most  adamantine  of  all  fortresses.  Very  dif 
ferent  were  the  homely  words  of  Abraham  Lincoln 
addressed  to  the  yeomanry  gathered  round  him 
on  the  prairies  of  Illinois.  Their  world-histo 
rical  import  has  been  already  set  forth.  But  the 
fact  must  here  be  brought  out  that  the  War  with 
its  leader  Lincoln  performed  a  great  act  of 


238  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

spiritual  liberation  for 'New  England.  Though 
it  deemed  -itself  emancipated  completely,  it 
needed  a  new  emancipation  in  its  way  as  much 
as  the  South.  When  the  leader  gave  his  call  for 
troops  against  rebellion,  disunion  and  secession, 
New  England  responded  at  once,  for  her  people 
were  at  bottom  patriots  and  good  Americans, 
even  if  it  can  be  shown  (as  some  Southern 
writers  delight  in  doing)  that  New  England  was 
the  original  home  of  rebellion,  disunion  and 
secession.  But  all  this,  if  not  exactly  van 
ished,  could  be  blown  off  in  talk,  that  inge 
nious  safety-valve  of  democracy  from  old 
Athens  down  to  the  present,  which  safety- 
valve  was  always  at  work  puffing  away  in  Massa 
chusetts  relieving  itself  of  its  inner  earthquakes. 
Still  it  must  be  recognized  that  the  call  of  Lin 
coln,  sounding  the  key-note  of  the  Nation's  crisis, 
stirred  in  the  New-Englander  a  deeper  strand 
than  his  abstract  moralism,  than  his  negative 
John-Brownism  (not  wholly  without  value,  how 
ever,  we  hold),  a  deeper  strand  than  he  was 
probably  aware  of,  for  his  deed  shows  his  spirit 
breaking  out  of  its  prison  of  mere  moral  individ 
ualism  and  provincialism,  and  becoming  national 
and  institutional.  That  was  a  real  emancipation 
surely  much  needed,  and  we  know  that  its  leader 
in  deed  and  word  was  Lincoln. 

The  Garrisonians  were  the  one  chief,  but  very 
noisy  exception.     Wendell  Phillips  called  Lincoln 


THE  NORTH.  —  JOHN'  BRO  WN.  239 

a  slave-catcher  on  account  of  his  attitude  toward 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Garrison  declared  the 
Constitution  to  be  an  agreement  with  Hell  and  a 
covenant  with  death.  At  Framingham,  Mas 
sachusetts,  he,  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  applaud 
ing  followers,  publicly  burned  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  His  paper  (called  the  Lib 
erator)  opposed  Eli  Thayer  and  sneered  at  the 
Emigrant  Aid  Society,  preferring  disunion  to  the 
freedom  of  Kansas  in  the  Union.  These  peo 
ple  always  claimed  that  their  purpose  was  to 
rouse  the  moral  spirit,  so  that  they  too  must  be 
considered  an  off-shoot  of  Puritanic  moralism. 
Their  faith  in  words  was  absolute,  for  they  advo 
cated  mere  agitation,  asserting  non-resistance. 
They  praised  John  Brown,  for  he  too  was  a  dis- 
unionist  and  anarchist ;  still  he  differed  from  them 
as  he  believed  in  the  deed.  Attending  a  meeting 
of  Abolitionists  in  Boston  not  long  before  his 
start  for  Harper's  Ferry,  he  complained  that  they 
were  all  talk,  whereas  the  time  needed  action. 
If  we  take  Emerson  as  the  best  type  of  man 
which  his  people  and  section  have  brought  forth, ' 
we  have  to  think  that  New  England  could  not 
have  produced  Lincoln,  though  it  could  and  did 
give  us  John  Brown.  Lincoln  belonged  to  the 
Derived  States,  not  to  the  Original  Thirteen,  to 
the  new  not  to  the  old.  He  sprang  from  and 
specially  represented  the  West-Northern  part  of 
the  Union,  which  at  his  call  rose  in  a  niightv  mass 


240  THE  TEX  YEARS'   WAfi.  —  PART II. 

of  living  valor,  swept  down  the  Mississippi  and 
opened  the  great  river  to  the  sea,  then  wheeled 
eastward  and  pushed  on  to  Chattanooga,  to 
Atlanta,  to  Savannah,  till  it  came  up  in  the  rear 
of  Richmond  where  it  found  the  two  sides  of  the 
OldThirteen  still  facing  each  other,  quite  as  they 
had  been  doing  for  four  years.  Whereupon 
came  the  end,  but  with  it  the  question,  What 
does  it  all  mean,  this  vast  circular  sweep  of  the 
Ten  Years'  War?  Let  our  reader  bear  the  ques 
tion  in  mind,  for  an  answer  cannot  yet  be 
attempted,  though  he  may  well  keep  before 
himself  the  image  of  the  old  States  remaining 
substantially  on  one  spot  during  the  whole  con 
test,  and  of  the  new  States  continually  moving  for 
ward  around  the  circumference  of  the  Union  till 
they  embrace  it  completely. 

VII.  We  must  cast  a  final  look  at  John  Brown 
during  those  last  days  when  the  scaffold  awaits 
him  in  Virginia.  Did  he  have  some  perception, 
even  if  dim,  that  his  own  law  of  retaliation  had 
come  home  to  him  in  the  penalty  which  he  was 
soon  to  suffer,  and  in  the  death  of  his  two  sons 
slain  in  the  fight?  That  is  a  secret  which  prob 
ably  went  with  him  to  the  grave,  though  the 
thought  of  it  lay  so  near.  Did  he  have  any  spe 
cial  reminder  to  turn  such  a  look  inwards?  Here 
comes  a  letter  addressed  to  him  —  from  whom? 
It  is  signed  by  Mrs.  Mahala  Doyle,  whose  hus 
band  and  two  sons  were  called  out  of  their 


THE  NORTH.  —  JOHN"  RRO  WN.      241 

home  at  dead  of  night  and  slain  by  Brown  and 
his  t\vo  youngest  sons  at  the  Pottawatomie  mas 
sacre  (evidence  of  Townsley,  now  generally  ac 
cepted  as  the  statement  of  an  eye-witness).  Her 
words  still  sound  like  the  very  voice  of  Nemesis 
proclaiming  from  the  skies  and  exulting  in  the 
return  of  the  blood-stained  deed  upon  its  guilty 
doer.  "  I  confess,"  says  she,  "  that  I  do  feel 
gratified  to  hear  that  you  were  stopped  in  your 
fiendish  career  at  Harper's  Ferry,  with  the  loss 
of  your  two  sons.  You  can  now  appreciate  my 
distress  in  Kansas  when  you  entered  my  house 
at  midnight  and  arrested  my  husband  and  two 
boys,  and  took  them  out  in  the  yard,  and  in  cold 
blood  shot  them  dead  in  my  hearing."  Thus 
the  John  Brown  cycle  of  gory  retaliation  has 
completed  itself,  and  has  even  been  voiced  in  a 
strain  like  that  of  the  Last  Judgment  by  the 
bereaved  wife  and  mother.  No  Greek  tragedy 
imaging  the  sanguinary  requital  of  the  Furies 
of  the  wicked  Deed,  no  Greek  legend  fabling  a 
Thyestean  banquet  of  blood-thirsty  vengeance 
can  equal  the  historic  reality  of  John  Brown's 
drama  of  retribution  from  its  Kansas  inception 
to  its  Virginia  conclusion.  (The  letter  of  Mrs. 
Doyle,  dated  Chattanooga,  Tennessee,  whither 
she  had  returned  from  Kansas,  is  printed  in 
Robinson's  book,  The  Kansas  Conflict,}).  399). 
Thus  the  tragedy  of  John  Brown  winds  up 
with  its  Cassandra,  in  her  furious  but  exultant 

16 


242  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

words  voicing  over  him  and  his  family  what  he 
has  done  to  her  and  her  family,  and  driving  home 
to  the  reader,  if  not  to  John  Brown,  the  outcome 
of  retaliation.  More  she  is  than  Cassandra,  who 
never  suffered  in  her  own  person  as  wife  and 
mother  what  this  woman  has  suffered  with  the 
keenest  poignancy  of  the  human  heart.  So  that 
old  song  of  Troy  insists  upon  bringing  back  its 
deeds  and  characters,  even  if  transformed,  and 
repeating  them  in  our  American  Iliad,  also  full  of 
woes. 

VIII.  But  this  American  Iliad  of  ours  does 
not  end  with  John  Brown's  tragedy  and  its  voice 
of  Cassandra;  in  fact  only  the  beginning  thereof 
has  been  made.  A  new  phase  of  the  great  prob 
lem  has  arisen,  which  neither  Lincoln  nor  Brown 
has  met  —  neither  Lincoln's  exclusion  of  slavery 
from  the  Territories  nor  Brown's  invasion  of 
the  Slave-States.  It  is  an  immediate  emergency  to 
be  faced  on  the  spot  by  the  man  then  and  there 
present,  without  waiting  for  Lincoln's  gradual 
extinction  of  the  system  or  the  result  of  Brown's 
distant  incursion. 

What  is  it?  Here  he  comes,  the  panting 
fugitive  right  across  our  path,  having  reached  a 
Free-State,  probably  after  many  toils  and  dan 
gers,  with  that  deepest  human  instinct  beating 
in  his  breast,  the  instinct  of  liberty.  Behold, 
the  bloodhounds  are  on  his  track,  the  slave- 
catcher  is  about  to  seize  him,  and  take  him  back 


THE  NOR TH  —  JOHN  BRO  WX.  243 

to  a  more  bitter  enslavement,  supported  by  that 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  to  which  Lincoln  said  the 
South  had  a  right  under  the  Constitution.  But 
tell  us,  O  Lincoln,  sympathetic  soul,  what  will 
you  do  when  you  see  that  sorely  pressed  fellow- 
man  running  past  your  office  in  Springfield  to 
ward  freedom  —  will  you  run  after  him  and  help 
capture  him?  Certainly  you  will  hesitate.  But 
the  Marshal  is  here  am}  commands  you,  having 
this  right  by  law.  The  problem  in  its  keen  in 
tensity  was  never  brought  home  to  Lincoln  in 
Illinois  and  did  not  rise  in  his  great  debate  with 
Douglas.  But  it  came  up  with  an  overpowering 
energy  in  many  places  of  the  Free-States,  reach 
ing  as  far  north  as  Boston  in  the  East  and  Wis 
consin  in  the  West.  It  is  a  new,  more  intense 
and  more  passionate  phase  of  that  same  well- 
known  conflict  between  legality  and  conviction, 
between  the  Constitution  and  Conscience.  More 
over,  it  passes  to  a  new  field,  to  a  new  State, 
out  of  Illinois  and  Virginia.  The  chief  scene  of 
this  present  form  of  the  struggle  was  Ohio, 
though  it  was  taking  place  sporadically  through 
out  the  North. 

And  the  new  man  appears  representing  the 
new  problem,  and  embodying  in  himself  its  fierce 
collision  with  authority.  Also  he  gives  to  this 
problem  his  solution,  seemingly  the  only  one 
possible  under  the  conditions. 


244  THE  T£\r  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART II. 


Simeon  BuebnelU 

In  this  process  of  the  Northern  Folk-soul  we 
are  going  to  place  with  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
John  Brown,  most  famous  men  of  their  period, 
the  name  of  a  man  almost  unknown  hitherto  in 
History,  certainly  not  known  in  the  World's 
History.  Of  him  our  reader  has  probably  never 
heard.  But  it  so  came  about  that  he,  an  humble 
toiler  in  a  small  town,  was  chosen  for  a  brief 
moment  to  be  the  upholder  and  the  representative 
of  the  grand  cause  pending  before  the  Tribunal 
of  the  Ages.  He  had  no  far-sounding  voice 
echoing  through  Space  and  down  Time ;  no 
splendid  gift  of  any  kind;  still  in  him  and 
through  him  was  embodied  an  act  which  makes 
him,  more  than  any  other  man  we  know  of  dur 
ing  this  particular  epoch,  the  visible  though 
momentary  appearance  of  the  World-Spirit  in 
carnate,  whose  presence  is  now  to  be  called  up 
illuminating  and  transfiguring  the  mortal  form 
of  Simeon  Bushnell,  an  unpretentious  workman 
of  Oberlin,  in  Northern  Ohio. 

His  short  career  illustrates  a  new  phase  of 
the  prevailing  conflict  between  morality  and  le 
gality.  The  individual  now  recognizes  both 
commands,  the  inner  and  the  outer,  even  in  their 
contradiction;  he  feels  compelled  to  violate  one 


THE  NORTH.  —  SIMEON"  BUSIJNELL.        245 

of  them,  though  he  acknowledges  it  to  have 
validity,  and  stands  ready  to  take  the  penalty 
of  his  violation.  The  soul  becomes  the  tragic 
arena  of  the  mighty  collision  of  the  time;  the 
very  self  of  man  splits  within  and  turns  into 
two  warring  selves  which  reflect  the  struggle  of 
the  Nation.  Such  was  the  internal  conflict 
which  the  execution  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law 
called  forth  with  greater  or  less  intensity 
throughout  the  North,  and  was  by  no  means 
unfelt  in  the  South,  for  many  a  Southerner  and 
Slaveholder  refused  to  pursue  runaway  slaves, 
even  his  own. 

After  the  passage  of  a  new  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  that  of  1850,  much  more  strict  and 
offensive  in  its  provisions  that  the  old  one  of 
1793,  an  era  of  slave-hunting  on  the  part  of  the 
South  began  in  the  North,  and  extended  through 
the  Fifties,  rousing  an  ever-increasing  hostility. 
It  provoked  the  strongest  inner  protest,  which 
often  drove  men  to  action,  causing  them  not 
only  to  help  their  fleeing  fellow-man,  but  to 
rescue  him  if  he  happened  to  get  caught.  These 
rescuers  were  not  ordinary  law-breakers,  but 
usually  conscientious  citizens  of  the  best  stand 
ing.  Thus  the  Fugitive  Slave  Enactment 
became  the  means  of  pushing  the  two  Laws, 
moral  and  statutory,  to  their  sharpest  point  of 
contradiction.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  undoubtedly  provided  for  the  rendition  of 


246  THE  TEN  YEABS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

Fugitive  Slaves,  and  Congress  was  endowed  with 
the  power  of  making  such  provision  effectual 
through  appropriate  legislation.  On  the  contrary, 
the  Conscience  of  the  time  had  risen  to  a  state  of 
strong  opposition  to  such  an  enactment,  and  was 
ready  in  many  places  of  the  North  not  only  to 
disobey  passively,  but  to  violate  actively  its 
injunctions.  The  South  or  rather  the  Oligarchy, 
however,  was  the  more  determined  to  force  the 
odious  measure  upon  the  North,  with  that  feeling 
of  domination  which  had  grown  to  be  the  salient 
trait  of  its  character,  and  with  the  belief  that  the 
test  of  its  long  maintained  supremacy  lay  in  the 
act  of  compelling  the  North  to  chase  down  and 
return  to  captivity  its  fleeing  bondmen. 

The  chief  scene  of  these  attempts  was  Ohio. 
Two  Slave-States,  Kentucky  and  Virginia,  ad 
joined  it,  furnishing  a  very  long  boundary  line 
over  which  the  fugitive  could  easily  escape  into 
freedom.  Then  its  people  as  a  whole  were 
known  to  be  anti-slavery,  and  it  was  seamed  from 
the  Ohio  River  northward  in  all  directions  with 
the  Underground  Railroad,  a  popular  name  for 
that  system  of  organized  help  which  conducted 
the  fugitive  from  one  place  of  safety  to  another. 
Here  we  may  note  the  reason  why  the  present 
phase  of  the  time's  problem  appears  with  such 
little  emphasis  in  the  otherwise  epoch-making 
contest  between  Lincoln  and  Douglas.  Illinois 
had  also  an  extended  boundary  line  along  two 


TEE  NORTH.  —  SIMEON  BUSHNELL.        247 

Slave-States,  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  with 
corresponding  opportunities  for  the  escape  of 
fugitives.  But  Illinois  was  known  to  be  un 
friendly  to  the  black  man,  its  early  law  not 
permitting  him  when  free  to  settle  within  its 
borders.  Then  the  Southern  part  of  the  State, 
which  the  fleeing  slave  would  ordinarily  have  to 
pass  through  first,  was  rabidly  anti-negro,  if  not 
pro-slavery.  So  it  comes  that  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  lacking  material  for  fire,  never  became  a 
burning  question  in  Illinois,  and  barely  rises  to 
the  surface  in  the  discussions  of  Lincoln,  who 
held  that  the  South  had  a  constitutional  right  to 
it,  though  he  denounced  slave-catching  as  "a 
dirty  and  disagreeable  business  which  the  slave 
holders  would  not  do  for  one  another.  " 

But  if  Ohio  is  the  chosen  State,  the  Northern 
part  of  the  State,  called  the  Western  Reserve,  is 
the  chosen  part,  and  in  this  Western  Reserve 
one  small  town  is  the  chosen  spot,  where  the 
fullest  and  most  complete  manifestation  of  both 
sides  of  the  conflict  between  the  two  Laws,  the 
moral  and  the  enacted,  is  to  be  witnessed. 
Oberlin  was  primarily  a  religious  community, 
devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  the  inner  life  and  to 
revivalism;  then  it  became  strongly  anti-slavery, 
and,  being  a  college  town,  took  a  vast  stride 
into  the  future,  proclaiming  that  every  human 
being  has  the  right  to  be  educated,  and  educated 
in  the  society  of  his  fellow-beings,  without  re- 


248  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

gard  to  difference  of  race  or  sex.  White  men 
and  women,  black  men  and  women,  were  all  as 
sociated  together  in  the  same  classes,  pursuing 
the  same  end  of  their  common  humanity  in  the 
attainment  of  a  free  spirit  through  education. 
In  this  regard  Oberlin  College,  though  not 
specially  erudite,  occupies  a  very  lofty  and  ad 
vanced  position  in  the  history  of  pedagogy,  being 
the  first  school  of  national  importance  that  ever 
took  such  an  attitude,  heroic  then  even  in  the 
North,  not  so  difficult  now.  But  at  present  it 
is  her  political  history  with  which  we  are  con 
cerned. 

Oberlin  was  the  very  home  of  the  Higher  Law, 
of  the  deification  of  Conscience,  which  in  her 
religious  speech  was  called  the  voice  of  God,  or 
more  emphatically  the  Law  of  God.  This  Con 
science  it  was  which  abhorred  Slavery  not  only 
as  a  wrong  to  Man  but  as  a  sin  against  God. 
On  the  other  hand  Oberlin  kept  her  citizenship, 
nay  her  patriotism ;  she  rejected  Garrison,  and 
did  not  follow  the  revolutionary  method  of  John 
Brown.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  Brown  was 
employed  by  Oberlin  College  in  1840  to  survey 
some  Virginia  lands,  in  which  it  had  an  interest. 
These  lands  were  situated  in  a  county  along  the 
Ohio  Eiver,  and  it  is  said  that  Brown  formed  his 
first  plan  of  invading  Virginia  during  this  tour 
of  surveying.  He  observed  the  mountains  and 
their  fastnesses,  thinking  that  they  would  be  a 


THE  NORTH.  —  SIMEON-  BU8HNELL.        249 

refuge  and  a  protection  for  a  small  band  of 
whites  and  an  army  of  runaways.  Brown  im 
agined  then,  as  he  did  nineteen  years  later 
at  Harper's  Ferry,  that  the  slaves,  as  soon  as 
the  presence  of  a  deliverer  became  known, 
would  flock  to  his  standard  from  every  quarter 
of  the  South.  This  was  his  great  delusion  in 
regard  to  the  negro's  character,  which  delusion 
however  was  shared  by  the  North.  And  the 
strange  fact  is  that  it  was  shared  by  the  Southern 
slaveholders  if  we  may  judge  from  their  terror  of 
servile  insurrection  so  often  and  so  passionately 
dilated  upon  by  their  orators.  Yet  the  slaves 
during  the  war  never  rose,  never  as  a  body  even 
ran  away  from  their  slavery,  when  both  oppor 
tunity  and  incentive,  one  would  think,  were  not 
wanting.  It  is  evident  that  the  pivotal  point 
of  Brown's  scheme  turned  on  an  element  in  the 
darkey  which  he  did  not  possess,  even  if  Brown 
succeeded  in  getting  five  negroes  to  take  part  in 
his  invasion,  one  of  whom  hailed  from  Oberlin, 
and,  having  been  taken  prisoner,  was  tried  and 
executed. 

Oberlin  naturally  came  to  have  a  large  popu 
lation  of  colored  people  who  gathered  there  for 
the  purpose  of  protection  and  of  education. 
Accordingly  it  became  a  secret  haunt  of  slave- 
catchers,  who  were  watched  in  turn  despite  their 
precaution.  One  of  these  man-hunters  succeeded 
in  decoying  a  fugitive  out  of  town,  and  carrying 


250  TEE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  -  PART II. 

him  off  to  a  neighboring  railway  station,  where 
he  was  rescued  by  a  small  army  of  pursuers, 
chiefly  Oberlinites.  This  took  place  September 
13th,  1858,  while  Lincoln  was  in  the  midst  of 
his  debate  with  Douglas,  which  did  not  broach 
the  Higher  Law,  but  turned  upon  the  question 
of  keeping  slavery  out  of  the  Territories,  and 
thereby  of  bringing  it  slowly  to  an  end  through 
Law  and  Constitution.  On  the  other  hand 
John  Brown  was  at  this  time  active,  seeking 
to  put  into  operation  his  revolutionary  plan 
of  destroying  slavery  at  once  by  a  direct  inva 
sion,  he  also  claiming  to  act  in  obedience  to  the 
Higher  Law,  or  the  command  of  God  in  his  own 
heart.  The  Territories  were  at  a  distance  from 
Lincoln,  and  the  Slave-States  were  at  a  distance 
from  Brown ;  but  at  Oberlin  the  fleeing  slave 
has  brought  to  every  man's  hearth  and  heart  the 
battle  between  the  two  Laws,  those  of  Conscience 
and  the  Constitution,  and  he  has  to  take  sides 
on  the  spot. 

December  7th,  through  the  Grand  Jury  of 
the  United  States  Court  at  Cleveland,  Ohio, 
thirty-seven  men,  chiefly  residents  of  Oberlin, 
were  indicted  for  resisting  the  Fugitive  Slave 

O  "         O 

Law.  The  marshal  put  them  under  arrest,  and 
they  voluntarily  went  to  Cleveland  for  trial. 
And  now  opens  that  conflict  of  the  two  sides 
both  of  which  were  represented  by  able  and  often 
passionate  disputants,  headed  by  the  United 


THE  NOBTH  —  SIMEON  BUSHNELL.        251 

States  Judge  (Willson),  who  in  his  charge  to 
the  Grand  Jury,  declared:  " There  is  a  senti 
ment  prevalent  in  the  community  which  arro 
gates  to  human  conduct  a  standard  of  right 
above  and  independent  of  human  laws ;  and  it 
makes  the  CONSCIENCE  of  each  individual  in 
society  the  test  of  his  own  accountability  to  the 
laws  of  the  land."  The  Judge  proceeds  to 
acknowledge  that  such  a  "sentiment  is  semi- 
religious  in  its  development,"  but  he  denounces 
it  as  "  almost  invariably  characterized  by  intol 
erance  and  bigotry,"  as  well  as  subversive  of 
human  society.  On  the  other  hand  the  press, 
the  pulpit,  the  hustings  resounded  with  echoes, 
loud  and  continued,  of  the  Higher  Law.  It 
was,  however,  no  mere  theoretical  discussion. 
Here  were  men  imprisoned,  over  whom  hung 
the  penalty  for  obeying  that  Higher  Law,  yet 
ready  to  take  the  legal  consequences  of  such 
an  act  though  imposed  by  an  unfriendly  Judi 
ciary.  Said  one  of  the  prisoners,  a  Professor 
in  the  College  :  "  We  mean  to  make  patriotism  a 
part  of  our  religion,  and  to  be  behind  none  in 
prompt  and  earnest  service  for  the  honor  and 
good  of  the  Commonwealth."  The  Professor 
added:  "Only  when  the  Commonwealth  is 
loyal  to  God,"  can  we  be  loyal  to  her;  and  we 
intend  to  teach  our  children  that  "  they  will  not 
be  dutiful  to  the  State,  if  they  did  not  hold  her 
to  her  duty  to  God."  The  reader  to-day  asks: 


252  THE  TEN  YEAKS'   WAE.  —  PART II. 

But  who,  my  dear  Professor,  is  to  be  judge  be 
tween  the  individual  and  the  State  when  this 
conflict  between  Conscience  and  Authority 
breaks  out  in  a  fury?  Are  you?  Is  the  State? 
Or  is  there  perchance  some  Power,  some  Spirit 
over  both,  bringing  them  first  into  this  terrible 
struggle  and  then  leading  them  out  of  it,  possi 
bly  through  blood,  to  a  new  reconciliation? 
Such  a  road  both  these  conflicting  sides  are  now 
traveling  and  will  reach  at  last  a  common  goal. 

Meanwhile  the  cnse  of  Simeon  Bushnell  has 
been  called  for  trial  (April  5,  1859).  Again  the 
conflict  seethes  up  in  that  court  room;  now 
between  the  two  sets  of  attorneys,  one  set  for 
the  prosecution,  the  other  for  the  prisoners. 
Vituperation  of  each  other  and  each  other's 
cause  spiced  the  proceedings  to  the  point  of  giv 
ing  the  lie,  intermingled  with  applause  and  hisses 
of  the  audience.  It  was  another  of  those  pre 
liminary  buttles  forecasting  the  Great  War. 
The  outcome  of  the  trial  was  that  Bushnell  was 
condemned  to  a  fine  of  six  hundred  dollars,  and  to 
imprisonment  in  the  county  jail  for  sixty  days. 

The  conflict  had  roused  the  whole  North,  and 
particularly  the  Western  Reserve,  which  as 
sembled  in  a  great  mass-meeting  at  Cleveland, 
May  24th.  But  in  that  excited  multitude  there 
was  no  thought  of  rescuing  the  prisoners,  or  of 
any  violence.  Protests  against  Slavery  and  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  were  indeed  loud,  long  and 


THE  NORTH.  —  SIMEON  BUSHNELL.       253 

passionate.  Giddings  came  the  nearest  to  a 
revolutionary  note  in  his  speech,  but  he  toned  it 
down  the  next  morning  in  a  card  to  a  leading 
newspaper.  Chase,  the  Republican  Governor  of 
the  State,  spoke  soothingly.  "  The  great 
remedy  is  in  the  people  themselves  at  the  ballot- 
box.  See  to  it,  what  kind  of  a  President  you 
elect  again."  Whereat  many  a  man  in  that 
audience  had  a  little  chuckle  to  himself  when  he 
thought  that  Chase  was  a  Presidential  candidate. 
In  all  these  discussions  one  is  surprised  at  the 
stress  put  upon  State-Eights.  Over  and  over 
again  do  we  hear  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of 
1850  violated  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  of 
Ohio,  and  was  therefore  unconstitutional.  The 
South  in  its  palmiest  days  never  set  forth  this 
doctrine  with  more  vigor  and  passion.  And  it 
was  known  that  there  were  Southerners  who 
held  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  unconsti 
tutional  through  its  violation  of  State-Rights. 
So  the  pro-slavery  extremists  of  South  Carolina 
and  the  anti-slavery  extremists  of  the  Western 
Reserve  could  meet  at  a  common  point  and  have 
a  hearty  handshake.  The  Attorney-General  of 
Ohio  (Wolcott),  in  an  argument  upon  a  phase 
of  the  present  case,  branded  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Act  of  1850  *'  as  a  flagrant  usurpation  of  whollv 
undelegated  powers,"  which  sounds  like  South 
Carolina.  To  be  sure,  Daniel  Webster  and  Henry 
Clay,  both  anti-slavery  men  as  well  as  great  law- 


254  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  IT. 

yers,  held  it  to  be  constitutional  and  voted  for  it, 
not  to  speak  of  other  eminent  members  of  the 
Congress  which  passed  it.  So  State-Rights  had 
hot  champions  in  the  North  as  well  as  in  the 
South,  though  the  support  of  such  championship 
had  purposes  exactly  opposite. 

Governor  Chase  at  the  Cleveland  mass-meeting, 
made  a  remark  which  deserves  to  be  remembered, 
He  said  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  in 
tended  as  a  symbol  —  "  symbol  of  the  supremacy 
of  the  Slave-States  and  subjugation  of  the  Free- 
States."  The  fact  is  the  Cotton  States  which 
lost  few  slaves,  in  comparison  with  the  Northern 
tier  of  Slave-States,  were  by  far  the  loudest, 
most  exacting,  and  most  menacing  supporters  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  —  which  fact  had  un 
doubtedly  its  covert  meaning,  or  was  symbolic, 
as  Chase  puts  it. 

The  second  trial  was  that  of  a" mulatto,  a  man 
of  education  and  ability,  who  claimed  with  pierc 
ing  logic  and  passionate  eloquence  that  he  had 
not  been  tried  by  jury  of  his  peers,  who  were 
white  men,  in  violation  of  the  fundamental  pre 
cept  of  Anglo-Saxon  justice.  The  judge  seemed 
to  feel  the  force  of  his  plea  and  gave  him  a  light 
sentence. 

Through  a  legal  maneuver  under  the  guise  of 
a  State  law  against  kidnaping,  the  trial  was 
brought  to  a  close,  and  the  untried  persons  were 
released, and  returned  home  in  a  kind  of  triumph 


THE  NORTH.  —  SIMEON  BU8HNELL         255 

(July  7th,  1859).  It  was  generally  agreed  that 
the  Oberlinites  had  been  victorious  in  the  pre 
liminary  struggle  for  their  principle.  The  whole 
affair  from  its  inception  had  lasted  nearly  ten 
months  and  had  made  the  entire  North  conscious 
of  the  deeper  condict  underlying  and  causing  the 
throes  of  the  time.  Both  political  parties  could 
not  help  seeing  the  issue  in  its  full  bearing,  and 
the  best  men  of  the  land  were  making  up  their 
minds  upon  that  issue.  Every  day  during  this 
period  the  newspapers  thrust  the  matter  before 
their  readers. 

Such  was  the  new  stage  in  the  grand  discip 
line  of  the  Northern  Folk-Soul  for  the  crisis 
which  is  surely  approaching.  Higher  Law  is 
indeed  old,  it  was  recognized  by  that  fertile 
Greek  mind  which  seemed  to  have  in  it  all  the 
conflicts  of  the  future  embryonically.  Antigone 
(a  woman,  mark)  following  her  own  inner  Law, 
buries  her  dead  brother  in  opposition  to  the  Law 
of  the  State  expressed  by  the  ruler.  Even 
ancient  Homer  shows  Hector  fighting  for  his 

O  O 

country  which  he  deems  to  be  in  the  wrong,  and 
hence  meeting  with  a  tragic  fate.  Oberlin, 
however,  interpreted  the  Bible  (not  Greek  Liter 
ature)  into  the  Higher  Law,  though  the  South 
interpreted  that  same  Bible  in  the  opposite 
way,  and  prayed  as  fervently  to  its  God.  The 
Bible  does  indeed  renew  Conscience,  but  Con 
science  must  also  renew  the  Bible.  The  historian 


256  THE  TEN  TEAKS'   WAE,  —  PART II. 

from  his  point  of  view  will  say  that  the  Spirit  of 
History,  the  Genius  of  Civilization,  the  World- 
Spirit  was  working  in  that  Oberlin  Conscience, 
making  it  and  its  deed  expressive  of  and  stimu 
lating  to  millions  of  others,  and  therein  putting 
them  all  under  training.  So  we  may  affirm  that 
the  World-Spirit,  after  skipping  from  Illinois  to 
Harper's  Ferry,  sweeps  back  into  Northern 
Ohio,  and  very  distinctly  to  the  historic  eye, 
with  which  we  now  must  look,  may  be  seen 
alighting  in  the  small  town  of  Oberlin  and 
choosing  an  humble  citizen  to  be  its  doer  and 
speaker. 

But  the  last  act  is  yet  to  be  told.  Simeon 
BushnelPs  time  of  imprisonment  had  not  expired 
when  the  other  untried  rescuers  were  themselves 
rescued  and  left  the  jail  for  home.  But  on  the 
llth  of  July  his  sixty  days  were  over,  and  after 
having  suffered  the  full  penalty  of  the  law  and 
paid  his  fine  he  started  on  his  triumphal  march 
from  Cleveland  to  Oberlin,  to  the  thousand- 
throated  refrain,  yea  if  there  could  have  been 
heard  all  the  secret  chorus  of  sympathetic  choris 
ters  throughout  the  Nation,  to  the  million- 
throated  refrain  of  "See,  the  conquering  Hero 
conies."  The  town  was  full  of  people,  who 
assembled  at  the  great  church,  as  they  were 
celebrating  a  supreme  religious  act  in  their  con 
viction,  where  speeches,  and  brass  bands,  and 
choir-singing  praised  the  Lord  and  His  miraculous 


THE  NORTH.  —  SIMEON  BUSHNELL.        257 

act  of  deliverance  in  a  mighty  tumult  of  jubila 
tion.  The  culminating  moment  wns  when 
Simeon  Bushnell,  being  called  upon  for  a  speech, 
rose  to  his  feet  in  the  pulpit  and  proclaimed  in 
the  highest  notes  of  his  somewhat  shrill  voice 
that  there  he  stood,  and  was  again  ready  to  give 
aid  to  the  panting  fugitive,  and  again  ready  to 
take  the  punishment  for  such  deed  of  merciful 
help  extended  in  the  hour  of  need  to  his  fellow- 
man  and  commanded  by  God's  own  Law. 
Whereat  such  a  shout  of  approval  arose  in  that 
crowded  church,  along  with  the  blowing  of  brass 
horns  in  the  gallery  as  if  from  the  Heavens,  and 
with  the  rising  and  singing  of  a  solid  mass  of 
jubilant  voices  from  the  lofty  seats  of  the  choir, 
that  no  mortal  man  could  stand  out  against  the 
enthusiasm,  or  help  feeling  the  presence  of  "that 
Power  irresistible,"  which  Lincoln  had  also  expe 
rienced  as  moving  and  working  in  vast  assem 
blages  of  the  People  on  the  prairies  of  Illinois 
during  his  debate  with  Douglas. 

But  with  this  one  deed  and  speech,  of  far 
deeper  import  than  many  of  greater  fame  and 
pretension,  the  humble  artisan  of  Oberlin  passes 
out  of  the  ken  of  the  World's  History,  and  not 
very  long  afterwards  out  of  life,  since  he  was 
suffering  all  these  days  from  the  secret  ravages 
of  an  incurable  disease.  Thus  he  was  destined 
never  to  witness  the  termination  of  that  conflict 
for  which  he  stood  and  suffered. 

17 


258  THE  TEN  YEARW   W AE  —  PART II. 

Here,  then,  the  two  colliding  elements  have  a  new 
solution,  not  final,  but  possible  for  the  exigency. 
You  are  to  obey  both  Laws  and  seek  the  ultimate 
remedy  of  their  conflict,  harassing  though  it  be, 
through  the  peaceful  ballot.  That  was  not 
John  Brown's  method.  But  what  if  yonder 
fugitive,  straining  every  nerve  to  escape  his  pur 
suers,  comes  your  way  just  now?  Obey  the  in 
ner  Law  and  help  him,  then  obey  the  outer  Law 
and  take  the  penalty.  Endure,  endure  thou 
must,  for  the  sake  of  Conscience  ;  endure,  endure 
thou  must,  for  the  sake  of  the  Institution  and 
its  Law.  Such  was  the  double  aspect  of  duty 
appearing  to  Simeon  Bushnell  and  many  others. 
It  must  be  endured  for  the  present,  that  dilacer- 
ating  contradiction  between  the  Enacted  and 
the  Higher  Law,  or  between  what  are  called  the 
human  and  the  divine  decrees,  though  both  are 
equally  divine  and  equally  human.  To  this 
point  of  tension  has  the  time  driven  the  man  of 
Conscience.  Take  me,  says  he,  punish  me,  I 
have  deserved  it  for  violating  Law,  but  I  would 
have  deserved  worse,  deserved  Hell  itself,  if  I 
had  not  violated  Law  in  this  case.  Kill  me,  if 
you  wish,  life  is  nothing  if  I  have  to  obey  that 
Law ;  I  would  rather  die  than  not  extend  help  to 
the  humble  fellow-mortal  in  his  sorest  trial.  To 
such  a  depth  and  energy  has  the  conflict  reached 
that  man  begins  to  stand  face  to  face  with  his 
own  tragedy.  The  result  of  the  execution  of 


THE  NORTH.  —  SIMEON  BUSHNELL.        259 

the  Fugutive  Slave  Law  was  to  intensify  the 
growing  conviction  that  not  only  the  enactment 
but  the  source  of  it  must  be  wiped  out.  In  such 
a  land  there  can  be  no  inner  peace  for  a  man  of 
Conscience.  Gladly  would  we  leave  slavery  alone 
in  the  Slave  States,  but  it  will  not  leave  us  alone. 

Underneath  all  assertions  of  non-interference 
with  slavery  where  it  legally  exists,  is  fermenting 
the  Folk-Soul  of  the  North  feeling  that  such  a 
sokition  can  only  be  temporary.  It  is  indeed  at 
bottom  a  negative  solution,  wherein  the  individ 
ual  with  his  conscience  is  punished,  possibly  de 
stroyed.  This  is  no  true  reconciliation  of  the 
moral  and  the  institutional  elements  in  man ;  each 
is  still  outside  of  the  other  and  antagonistic. 
Wait;  in  about  six  years  from  this  time  Con 
science  will  rise  and  transform  that  Constitution 
which  now  suppresses  and  punishes  it,  as  we  may 
hear  in  the  following  grand  act  of  liberation : 
"Neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude,  ex 
cept  as  a  punishment  for  crime,  shall  exist  within 
the  United  States,  or  any  place  subject  to  their 
jurisdiction." 

But  to  this  point  time  has  not  yet  historically 
brought  us  though  preparing  for  a  rapid  jour 
ney  thither.  After  tarrying  these  few  months 
the  World-Spirit  will  leave  Oberlin  also,  having 
made  it  the  most  striking  representative  of  a 
peculiar  phase  of  the  mighty  conflict.  The  town 
produced  no  great  historic  character,  like 


260  THE  TEN  YEARti*   WAR. —PART II. 

Lincoln,  like  John  Brown.  It  was  the  commu 
nity,  substantially  self-guided,  that  arose  and 
did  the  deed.  Some  professors,  some  students, 
some  citizens,  some  darkeys,  some  politicians 
(for  these  too  were  on  hand),  made  up  the  rather 
indistinguishable  throng  which  poured  itself  out 
of  the  town  and  streamed  down  the  road,  quite 
leaderless,  after  the  slave-catcher,  who  was  now 
hunted  himself  with  far  more  desperation  than 
he  had  ever  hunted  a  slave.  The  act  of  the 
whole  community  it  was  with  a  few  dissentient 
voices,  one  of  which  was  that  of  the  Village 
Blacksmith,  a  herculean  negro,  who,  once  a 
slave  himself  in  the  South,  had  bought  his  own 
freedom  and  then  that  of  his  wife  and  children, 
through  skill  and  industry  at  his  trade,  and  had 
landed  them  all  in  Oberlin,  continuing  still,  in 
his  talk  at  least,  a  pro-slavery  African. 

So  it  remains  the  great  merit  of  this  com 
munity,  with  many  like-minded  ones,  that  in  her 
the  moral  spirit,  though  so  deeply  cherished  and 
cultivated,  never  became  destructive  of  Law  and 
Institutions,  as  it  has  often  done;  nor,  on  the 
other  hand,  did  this  moral  spirit  renounce  and 
deny  its  own  worth  and  validity  within  its 
legitimate  sphere,  as  it  has  often  done.  Con 
science  sought  not  to  destroy  the  Constitution 
in  its  strongest  self-assertion,  but,  waiting  and 
suffering  if  need  be,  sought  rather  to  transform 
that  instrument  of  supreme  institutional  au- 


THE  NOR  TH.  —  SINE  ON  B  USHNELL .        261 

thority,  even  through  the  obedience  of  pain  and 
martyrdom,  into  harmony  with  itself  as  the 
superscription  and  the  decree  of  the  World- 
Spirit.  This  transformation  at  last  took  place, 
and  that  furious  struggle  between  the  moral  and 
institutional  man,  which  so  long  and  so  fiercely 
rent  the  Folk-Soul  of  the  North,  was  pacified, 
receiving  a  truer  and  deeper  reconciliation  of  its 
contending  claims  than  any  hitherto  known  in 
the  World's  History, 

Such  was  the  one  side,  the  Northern  with  the 
mighty  throes  surging  through  its  heart  during 
these  years  (1858-61),  begotten  of  slavery;  but 
what  about  the  other  side? 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH. 

We  can  now  turn  to  the  South  and  try  to  find 
out  what  it  is  doing,  what  is  going  on  within  its 
Folk-Soul  by  way  of  prelude  to  the  great 
struggle.  As  already  stated,  the  difference 
between  North  and  South  is  more  pronounced 
than  ever,  though  it  existed  from  the  beginning; 
Kansas  has  widened  that  little  crack  in  the  Union 
called  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  into  an  open  chasm  : 
each  side  is  starting  to  become  a  separate  country 
with  its  own  life  and  purpose.  Thus  the  Folk- 
Soul  of  the  Nation  as  whole  is  cleft  in  the 
middle,  and  commences  to  show  two  opposed 
and  conflicting  Folk-Souls,  whose  contest  is  our 
Ten  Years'  War.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  while  the  whole  is  dividing  itself  into  these 
two  halves,  one  of  these  halves  shows  the  tend 
ency  toward  Disunion  and  the  other  toward 
Union. 

In  the  matter  of  land,  the  South  in  1858  had  a 
(262) 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  263 

greater  area  than  the  North  (851,488  square 
miles  to  612,597,  that  is,  over  one-third  more). 
Then  the  North  had  about  twice  as  many  inhabi 
tants  to  the  square  mile  as  the  South.  If  the 
argument  turned  on  an  equal  distribution  of  the 
land  between  the  two  sections,  the  South  had  an 
area  equal  to  five  States  of  the  size  of  New  York 
more  than  the  North.  If  the  argument  turned 
on  the  people's  need  of  land  as  indicated  by 
population,  the  North  needed  it  twice  as  much  as 
the  South.  But  the  contest  really  was  for  polit 
ical  power  through  the  new  States  to  be  made  out 
of  the  Territories.  The  area  of  these  Territories 
in  1858  equaled  the  area  of  both  Northern  and 
Southern  States,  with  a  little  State  in  addition, 
larger  than  Massachusetts.  Such  was  the  out 
look  upon  the  coming  strife  between  the  two  sec 
tions,  of  which  Kansas  would  seemingly  be  but 
a  brief  prelude,  provided  that  the  movement  kept 
going  westward.  But,  strange  to  say,  the  stress 
of  the  conflict,  as  already  noted,  has  quit  Kan 
sas,  and  wheeling  about,  is  moving  eastward. 
The  center  of  the  trouble  must  be  sought  for,  and 
the  cure  must  take  place  there.  Starting  from 
the  Kansas  border,  the  World-Spirit  whose 
movement  we  are  particularly  watching,  seems  to 
be  marching  for  the  Old-Thirteen,  and  for  their 
Capital,  Washington.  And  when  the  Great  Wai- 
comes  on,  we  shall  find  that  it  has  esseutia^y  the 


264  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

same  movement,  its  total  sweep  being  taken  into 
the  account. 

In  the  North  we  have  watched  the  struggle 
between  the  moral  and  institutional  elements  in 
its  various  manifestations,  which  have  been  rep 
resented  by  three  individuals.  In  the  South  we 
shall  find  that  the  process  moves  through  classes 
rather  than  through  individuals,  and  is  aristo 
cratic  rather  than  democratic,  its  trend  being 
from  above  downwards  rather  than  from  below 
upwards.  The  problem  in  the  North  is :  How 
shall  we  make  our  moral  convictions  determine 
our  Institutions?  The  problem  in  the  South  is: 
How  shall  we  make  our  Institutions  determine 
our  moral  convictions?  Shall  our  rising  Con 
science  transform  the  inherited  Law,  or  shall 
the  inherited  Law  transform  our  rising  Con 
science?  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  North  in 
clined  one  way,  and  the  South  the  opposite  way. 
If  the  World-Spirit  first  stamps  its  superscription 
upon  the  Folk-Soul  in  an  ethical  form,  then  the 
South  ran  counter  to  the  World-Spirit,  to  Prog 
ress,  to  Civilization.  Thus  the  Kansas  conflict, 
as  we  have  often  noted,  is  typical  of  the  con 
flict  between  the  two  sections,  and  preludes  the 
the  Great  War. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  that  the  democratic 
Individualism  of  the  North  is  moving  toward  the 
associated  whole  of  the  Nation,  while  the  aristo 
cratic  Classisrn  of  the  South  is  moving  toward 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  265 

the  dissociated  partition  of  the  Nation.  The 
origin  of  this  Classism,  so  separative  in  its 
nature,  goes  back  to  the  great  gulf  which  di 
vides  the  black  slave  from  the  white  master, 
quite  impassable  on  account  of  the  differ 
ence  of  race.  This  difference  gradually  per 
meated  the  whole  social  fabric  of  the  South, 
dividing  the  whites  also  into  Classes,  the  slave 
holders  and  the  non-slaveholders,  between  whom 
the  chasm  kept  widening,  as  the  one  Class  em 
braced  largely  the  rich  and  educated,  the 
other  the  poor  and  ignorant.  Yet  both  the 
slaves  and  the  non-slaveholders  were  in  a  large 
majority,  so  that  at  home  the  slaveholders  as  a 
minority  had  to  rule  two  majorities.  In  fact  so 
strong  did  the  spirit  of  Classism  become,  that 
their  own  slaveholding  Class  split  into  subordi 
nate  Classes,  of  which  one,  also  a  minority  of 
the  total  Class,  bore  sway  over  the  rest  which 
made  up  the  majority. 

I.  At  this  point  we  can  see  what  the  slavehold 
ers  of  the  South,  as  the  ruling  Class,  were  think 
ing  about  incessantly.  Their  political  problem 
maybe  summarized  as  the  minority's  government 
over  the  majority.  How  can  the  few  and  relatively 
always  becoming  fewer,  rule  the  greater  number, 
and  always  becoming  relatively  greater?  It  is 
evident  that  such  a  problem  must  lay  an  ever- 
increasing  burden  upon  the  Southern  mind,  which 
had  to  occupy  itself  almost  exclusively  with  pol- 


266  THE  TEN  YEARS1    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

itics,  if  it  was  going  to  retain  its  supremacy. 
Moreover  such  an  exclusive  line  of  thought  and 
work  moulded  in  time  the  character. 

In  order  that  the  reader  may  see  the  nature 
and  sweep  of  this  problem,  we  shall  set  down  in 
order  the  four  majorities  which  the  one  Southern 
minority  deemed  that  it  had  to  control,  and 
actually  did  control,  for  many  years,  even  with 
a  continually  increasing  disparity  in  numbers  and 
wealth. 

(1.)  The  Class  of  slaveholders  within  itself 
developed  into  several  divisions,  the  uppermost 
and  richest  of  which  may  be  taken  to  embrace 
the  owners  of  fifty  slaves  and  more,  while  the 
lowest  and  poorest  division  would  include  the 
owners  of  one,  two,  three  and  even  four  slaves. 
In  the  latter  the  masters  usually  labored  in  the 
fields  with  their  bondmen.  The  first  division  — 
less  than  8,000  by  the  census  of  1850 — gave 
tone  to  Southern  society,  and  furnished  its  policy 
as  well  most  of  its  rulers.  Then  came  the  inter 
mediate  division  or  divisions.  The  lowest  di 
vision,  however,  was  more  numerous  than  all 
the  other  divisions  combined,  containing  over 
174,000  small  slaveholders,  who  often  showed 
discontent,  and  had  to  be  skillfully  handled  by 
the  ruling  minority. 

It  is  this  fact  which  makes  the  term  Oligarchy 
applicable  to  the  rule  of  the  slaveholders.  The 
governing  Class  was  really  a  select  Class  (or 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  267 

Few)  within  the  total  Class,  which  was  itself  a 
minority  of  the  entire  Southern  white  popula 
tion.  The  whole  body  of  slaveholders  formed 
an  Aristocracy;  but  the  Aristocracy  was  itself 
ruled  by  an  Oligarchy  with  in  itself.  Now  it  was 
this  Oligarchy  whose  counsels  controlled  the 
South  and  also  the  Nation,  till  its  power  was 
broken  by  the  War.  As  we  here  see,  it  starts  at 
home  inside  its  own  Class  with  minority  rule, 
which  becomes  its  strongest  principle  as  well  as 
its  inmost  character,  causing  it  to  send  forth 
from  itself  as  center  a  succession  of  concentric 
waves  of  minority  rule  to  the  limits  of  the  land. 
(2.)  The  next  majority  to  be  mentioned  as 
controlled  by  the  Southern  minority  of  slave 
holders  is  that  of  the  white  non-slaveholders 
of  their  section.  How  is  this  accomplished? 
As  the  minority  has  the  State  legislatures,  there 
is  no  adequate  system  of  Public  Schools,  so  that 
the  poor  whites  are  kept  in  ignorance.  More 
over  their  labor  is  degraded  by  slavery,  being 
regarded  as  servile,  and  it  is  often  driven  out  of 
the  market,  reducing  those  who  have  it  for  sale 
to  abject  poverty.  The  result  is  a  bitter  preju 
dice  in  the  impoverished  and  ignorant  non- 
slaveholder  not  so  much  against  the  slaveholder, 
the  real  cause,  as  against  the  black  slave,  the 
apparent  cause.  This  prejudice  was  the  great 
lever  which  the  minority  used  for  the  preserva 
tion  of  its  power  in  the  South,  by  rousing  in  the 


268  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

poor  whites  the  hate  for  their  black  competitors 
and  also  the  fear  of  negro  equality. 

(3.)  The  third  majority  in  his  own  section 
which  the  slaveholder  had  to  control  embraced 
the  blacks,  numbering  about  three  and  one-half 
millions  in  1850.  Of  course  this  control  was 
economic  and  personal  rather  than  political  and 
indirect;  still  it  was  authority  and  the  source  of 
the  other  authorities  in  more  ways  than  one.  It 
gave  to  the  slaveholder  his  financial  power,  his 
leisure  for  politics,  his  social  position,  and  also 
his  dominating  character.  There  is  little  doubt 
that  the  appetite  of  the  Southerner  for  authority 
as  well  as  his  skill  in  gratifying  it,  sprang  from 
his  mastership  over  his  slaves  bred  in  him  for 
generations  and  starting  in  early  infancy.  This 
was  his  original  and  fundamental  minority  rule, 
which  spread  from  that  one  relation  into  every 
other. 

The  educational  effect  of  slavery  has  often 
been  noticed.  No  man  has  spoken  of  this  with 
greater  power  and  sagacity  than  Thomas  Jeffer 
son,  himself  a  slaveholder  though  anti-slavery. 
As  his  evidence  was  given  long  before  the  strife 
between  North  and  South  —  in  which  a  struggle 
for  power  was  also  mingled  —  we  may  take  his 
statements  as  those  of  an  impartial  observer.  In 
his  Notes  on  Virginia  he  says:  "  The  whole 
commerce  between  master  and  slave  is  a  perpetual 
exercise  of  the  most  boisterous  passions — the 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  269 

most  unremitting  despotism  on  one  part  and  de 
grading  submission  on  the  other.  Our  children 
see  this,  and  learn  to  imitate  it,  for  man  is  an 
imitative  animal.  This  quality  is  the  germ  of  all 
education  in  him.  *  *  The  parent  storms, 

the  child  looks  on,  catches  the  lineaments  of 
wrath,  puts  on  the  same  airs  in  the  circle  of 
smaller  slaves,  gives  loose  rein  to  the  worst  of 
passions,  and  thus  nursed,  educated,  and  daily 
exercised  in  tyranny,  cannot  but  be  stamped  by 
it  with  its  odious  peculiarities.  *  And 

with  what  execration  must  the  statesman  be 
loaded  "  who  does  not  work  for  the  annihilation 
of  this  curse.  No  New  England  abolitionist  in 
the  noon-day  of  anti-slavery  excitement  ever 
used  stronger  language  than  this.  For  our 
present  purpose,  however,  we  wish  to  call  atten 
tion  to  its  educational  insight  which  goes  far  to 
account  for  the  inborn  and  inbred  love  of  domi 
nation  in  the  Southerner,  who  both  inherited  it 
from  his  ancestors  and  was  educated  into  it  by 
his  environment.  A  minority  ruler  he  was  by 
birth  and  by  training.  We  are  seeking  to  ac 
count  for  him,  not  to  abuse  him,  and  herein  we 
are  simply  following  the  keen  psychological 
analysis  of  Jefferson  who  threw  such  a  penetrat 
ing  glance  into  the  hearts  of  those  around  him 
and  perchance  into  his  own  heart. 

(4.)  The    foregoing    account   has   shown  the 
slaveholding  minority  —  the  Oligarchy  —  ruling 


270  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

three  majorities  at  home  in  the  South,  that  of 
its  own  Class,  and  of  the  non-slaveholding  Class, 
and  of  the  slaves.  This  very  considerable  work 
it  has  done  with  success.  But  now  comes  a 
greater  task,  and  one  which  is  growing  more  and 
more  difficult  —  its  minority  rule  over  the  whole 
Nation,  inclusive  of  the  North  ever  increasing  in 
population  and  wealth,  and  also  in  hostility  to 
slavery  and  its  oligarchical  rule.  It  must  always 
astonish  the  world  how  long  and  with  what  po 
litical  skill  this  small  minority  of  the  South  was 
able  to  dominate  the  four  great  majorities,  till  at 
last  its  power  was  broken  in  the  Nation  by  the 
election  of  Lincoln  in  1860,  and  then  shivered 
to  fragments  in  its  own  section  by  the  Great 
War. 

It  is  probable  that  the  Oligarchy  might  have 
maintained  its  minority  rule  at  home  in  the  South 
for  many  years,  if  it  had  accepted  the  majority 
rule  in  the  Nation  as  determined  in  the  Presi 
dential  election  of  1860.  This  was  the  opinion 
of  its  greatest  statesman,  Alexander  H.  Stephens, 
who  held  that,  while  the  South  had  the  right  to 
secede  and  also  had  received  sufficient  provoca 
tion,  such  a  course  would  be  impolitic.  Still  the 
Oligarchy  rejected  this  view,  feeling  that  if  it  sub 
mitted  even  once  to  the  national  majority,  the 
whole  principle  of  minority  rule  would  be  upset, 
and  would  sooner  or  later  have  to  be  abandoned 
even  in  the  South.  So  the  Oligarchs  resolved  to 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  271 

follow  principle  rather  than  policy.  To  be  sure, 
this  principle,  the  rule  of  the  minority,  was  anti- 
republican  and  would  break  up  the  old  Nation, 
but  a  new  Nation  could  be  formed  with  it  as 
foundation.  The  Constitution  of  the  Con 
federate  States,  was,  accordingly,  based  in 
explicit  terms  upon  the  foregoing  form  of 
minority  rule. 

From  the  same  motive  sprang  the  prolonged 
resistance  of  the  Oligarchy  to  the  freedom  of 
Kansas,  as  this  would  destroy  the  equality 
between  North  and  South,  there  being  already 
sixteen  Free-States  to  fifteen  Slave-States.  So 
the  National  Union  was  proclaimed  to  be  Slave- 
State  producing,  whereupon  the  Republican 
party  made  its  appearance  in  opposition,  seeking 
to  stop  the  perpetuation  of  minority  rule,  in 
which  the  ownership  of  negroes  having  no  votes 
conferred  political  power  upon  the  master. 

II.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  1858  the  pre 
ceding  political,  or,  rather  oligarchical,  develop 
ment  of  the  South  was  approaching  a  crisis. 
A  strong  party  (the  Republican)  was  united 
against  it,  ever  increasing  in  size  and  compact 
ness.  On  the  other  hand  its  own  party  (the 
Democratic)  was  disrupted  and  disintegrating 
more  and  more,  though  still  powerful.  The  Oli 
garchy  felt  its  supremacy  threatened  to  the 
foundation,  and  had  a  presentiment  that  a  fight 
for  life  was  coming. 


272  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PAET  II. 

In  1858,  accordingly,  the  outlook  of  the 
South  was  not  favorable.  It  had  lost  more  than 
all  that  it  had  gained  by  the  Presidential  elec 
tion  of  1856.  It  was  in  a  state  of  inner  sepa 
ration  and  doubt  and  dissension.  Kansas,  in 
spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  South  combined  with 
the  power  of  the  Administration,  was  lost.  The 
Dred  Scot  decision,  instead  of  destroying  the 
Republican  party,  had  inspired  it  with  new  zeal 
and  deepened  its  purpose.  The  elections  in  the 
North  were  overwhelmingly  adverse,  and  had 
sent  a  hostile  House  of  Representatives  to  the 
Capital.  Pennsylvania,  the  home  of  the  President 
(Buchanan)  had  more  than  reversed  her  vote  for 
him  two  years  before ;  her  great  majority 
against  his  policy  and  his  advisers  showed  not 
only  disappointment  but  wrath.  The  prospect 
for  extending  the  empire  of  Slavery  into  the 
Spanish-American  countries  was  not  bright  in 
1858 ;  the  negotiation  for  Cuba  did  not  prosper, 
and  Walker,  the  filibuster,  had  been  driven  out  of 
Nicaragua.  In  domestic  politics  the  Democratic 
party,  the  support  of  the  South,  showed  decided 
signs  of  being  rent  assunder;  disunion  had  en 
tered  it  and  was  tearing  it  to  pieces.  It  had, 
moreover,  become  plain  that  not  only  could  a 
Southern  man  not  be  elected  to  the  Presidency, 
but  there  could  not  again  be  elected  a  Northern 
man  with  Southern  principles,  like  Pierce  and 
Buchanan. 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  273 

A  pivotal  year,  then,  for  the  South  was  this 
year  1858.  It  was,  so  to  speak,  thrown  back 
upon  itself  and  compelled  to  align  itself  anew 
for  the  future.  The  same  fact  we  have  already 
observed  in  the  North.  The  indication  was  that 
the  South  would  have  to  surrender  its  national 
power  at  the  next  Presidential  election.  Can  it 
bring  itself  to  perform  such  an  act  which  it 
deems  so  humiliating?  That  is  the  chief  prob 
lem,  which  it  is  going  to  ponder  upon  and  work 
over  within  itself  for  the  next  three  years. 
Hence  the  division  into  Unionists  and  Disunion- 
ists  begins  to  appear  in  a  preponderating  fashion. 
We  may  hear  what  the  Southern  mind  is  busied 
with  in  the  question  :  Shall  the  South  secede,  if 
a  Kepublican  President  is  elected?  Many  shades 
of  opinion  rose  and  floated  in  the  Southern 
Folk-Soul,  but  they  hovered  about  one  center; 
if  we  cannot  rule  this  Union,  shall  we  break  it 
up? 

It  is  indeed  a  trying  problem.  For  more  than 
two  generations  the  South  has  directed  the  des 
tinies  of  the  Nation,  and  has  become  not  only 
accustomed  to  but  ingrown  with  supreme  au 
thority.  Can  it  give  up  its  domination  and  be 
ruled  in  its  turn?  That  is  the  inner  struggle 
with  which  it  is  now  surging,  and  about  this  it 
is  making  up  its  mind,  preparatory  to  the  outer 
struggle. 

III.  Accordingly  we  have  to  bring  before  our- 
18 


274  THE  TEN  TEARS*   WAR.  -  PART  II. 

selves  the  character  and  condition  of  the  South 
as  it  was  half  a  hundred  years  ago  in  the  fifties 
of  the  nineteenth  century  before  the  great 
changes  which  were  brought  about  during  and 
since  the  War.  In  such  an  investigation  our 
first  question  must  be :  What  is  the  deepest  and 
strongest  motive  at  this  time  impelling  the 
South?  What  is  it  that  is  really  driving  the 
Southern  Folk-Soul,  in  part  secretly  and  uncon 
sciously,  to  stake  all  upon  the  sword?  The 
answer  is,  not  simply  the  love  but  the  necessity 
of  Power  to  the  South  ;  she  cannot  surrender  the 
domination  she  has  exercised  for  so  long  a 
period  without  a  convulsion  in  her  very  heart, 
which  means  a  desperate  fight.  To  this  deepest 
motive  must  be  added  others,  but  more  super 
ficial,  which  indeed  become  means  for  realizing 
the  one  great  end,  for  gratifying  this  one  strong 
est  passion  for  authority 

Let  it  be  said  at  the  start  that  such  a  motive 
is  not  bad  in  itself,  but  commendable  rather. 
The  man  or  men  who  feel  capable  of  leading 
their  people,  have  not  only  the  right  but  the 
duty  of  Power;  especially  at  a  critical  time 
they  ought  to  step  forth  and  assume  the  re 
sponsibility  of  leadership.  Not  to  do  so  is  the 
supreme  sin  of  omission,  of  shirking  the  God- 
sent  burden,  of  which  History  as  well  as  the 
lofty  World-poets  have  not  failed  to  show  the 
penalty.  It  is  truly  "  the  great  refusal  "  which 


CHAPTER  IL  -  THE  SOUTH  275 

Dante  punishes  in  one  of  the  circles  of  his 
Inferno.  The  desire  for  power  is  not  in  itself  a 
ground  of  reproach  but  of  praise.  The  lust  of 
domination  is  often  denounced  from  a  kind  of 
jealousy,  particularly  by  persons  who  have  it 
themselves,  but  whose  ambition  has  been 
thwarted,  or  whose  incapacity  has  been  illumi 
nated.  So  it  was  not  wrong  but  right  for  the 
South  to  rule,  provided  she  ruled  according  to 
right. 

We  have,  then,  to  consider  the  way  or 
the  means  by  which  the  South  sought  to 
perpetuate  her  authority.  This  means  was  the 
extension  of  slavery,  for  which  she  became  the 
ardent,  we  might  say,  the  maddened  champion. 
Though  her  end  was  not  wrong  in  itself,  her 
means  was  wrong,  as  time  has  shown  and  as  civili 
zation  has  said,  if  it  has  ever  said  anything. 
The  State-producing  Union  of  the  Fathers,  or  at 
least  so  intended  by  them,  the  South  has  sought 
to  transform  into  a  Union  productive  of  Slave- 
States,  for  the  purpose  of  getting  and  keeping 
her  Power.  She  has  made  herself  the  defender 
of  slavery  in  all  its  aspects,  economic,  social, 
moral,  political,  religious.  This  was  a  great 
change  from  her  attitude  during  and  just 
after  the  formation  of  the  Constitution,  at 
least  from  the  attitude  of  her  greatest  men, 
who  were  in  line  with  the  movement  of  the  age, 
in  harmony  with  the  decree  of  the  World-Spirit, 


276  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  1L 

regarding  slavery  as  an  evil  which  might  be  nec 
essary  for  a  time,  but  which  ought  to  be  abol 
ished  as  soon  as  possible. 

The  mentioned  change  in  the  South  began  to 
take  place  in  the  first  generation  after  the  Con 
stitution.  It  was  brought  into  activity  when  the 
territory  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  had  to  be  cut 
up  into  States.  Shall  these  be  devoted  to  free 
labor  or  slave  labor?  A  great  agitation  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  arose  in  the  Nation  which  was 
allayed  by  the  Missouri  Compromise  of  1820. 

But  through  the  Mexican  War  a  vast  new 
domain  was  acquired,  and  again  the  same  ques 
tion  came  to  the  front  with  fresh  agitation,  which 
was  calmed  for  a  time  by  the  Compromise  Meas 
ures  of  1850.  In  both  these  Compromises  the 
South  took  the  part  of  the  propagator  of  slavery, 
yet  with  a  decided  change  of  view  toward  it. 
The  Southerners  themselves  acknowledged  this 
change.  Said  W.  Gilmore  Simms  in  an  essay 
published  in  1852:  "  Twenty  years  ago  few 
persons  in  the  South  undertook  to  justify  slav 
ery;  now  very  few  persons  in  the  same  region 
questioned  their  perfect  right  to  the  labor  of 
their  slaves,  and,  more,  their  moral  obligation  to 
keep  them  still  subject  as  slaves."  The  South 
Carolina  novelist  regards  this  change  "  as  a 
great  good,"  and  "  the  fruit  wholly  of  foreign 
pressure,  "  namely  the  pressure  of  the  North 
against  slavery. 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  277 

Still  the  man  can  be  pointed  out,  who,  more 
than  any  other,  was  the  leader  of  this  change  — 
John  C.  Calhoun.  His  career  lay  in  the  genera 
tion  before  1850,  and  ends  in  the  Compromise  of 
that  year.  The  great  statesmen  of  Virginia,  the 
founders  and  the  early  administrators  of  the 
Government,  were  slaveholders  but  were  anti- 
slavery  in  sentiment.  Now  Virginia  after  her 
illustrous  period  turns  to  the  new  belief,  which 
is  even  reflected  in  the  later  years  of  Jefferson, 
once  the  most  ardent  abolitionist  of  his  time. 
Virginia  smothers  her  moral  protest  pre 
viously  so  loud,  and  she,  the  mother  of  Presi 
dents,  turns  to  slave-breeding  for  the  Cotton 
States,  and  never  brings  forth  another  President 
for  the  United  States  in  direct  line  of  descent. 
From  Virginia  sprang  the  idea  of  the  State-pro 
ducing  Union  and  its  formulation  in  the 
Constitution  ;  still  further,  she  at  first  sought  to 
make  this  Union  Free-State  producing,  as  may 
be  seen  in  the  ordinance  of  1787.  But  now  she 
turns  to  the  undoing  of  her  own  greatest  work, 
and  bends  her  effort  to  make  the  Union  Slave- 
State  producing,  as  if  she  might  in  that  way 
clutch  afresh  her  fleeting  power.  This  is  what 
destroyed  her  supremacy,  sapping  the  deep 
foundations  of  character  in  her  statesmanship, 
and  causing  her  public  men  to  deterioriate 
"Visibly  from  the  high  standard  set  by  Washington, 
Marshall  and  Jefferson.  They  no  longer  kept 


278  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

pace  with  the  march  of  the  age,  but  wheeled 
about  and  took  the  opposite  road;  they  no  longer 
heard  the  voice  of  the  World-Spirit  which 
whispered  morally  to  the  human  heart  its  un 
alterable  decree  against  slavery. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  intelligent 
Southerners  knew  that  the  civilized  world  was 
against  their  institution.  But  they  defied  the 
Public  Opinion  of  other  nations.  Simms,  in  the 
essay  already  cited,  cries  out:  "What  are  they 
that  should  subject  us  to  the  question?  The 
Southern  people  are  a  nation,"  that  is,  taken  by 
themselves,  apart  from  the  North,  and  will  not 
"  answer  at  the  tribunal  of  any  other  nation." 
So  the  fiery  novelist  flings  his  defiance  at  the 
world,  declaring  that  we  shall  *'  answer  with 
weapons  and  in  no  other  language  than 
that  of  war  to  the  knife,"  should  our  slave- 
holding  right  be  challenged.  Out  of  these  words 
breathes  the  spirit  of  irresponsible  domination, 
begotten  of  the  relation  of  master  to  slave.  The 
stigma  branded  by  Civilization  upon  slavery 
never  aroused  Conscience  as  it  ought  to  have 
done,  but  an  intense  wrath  with  the  offer  of 
buttle  on  the  spot. 

Looking  back  from  the  present  time  we  can 
easily  see  to  what  this  spirit  is  leading  —  tragedy. 
South  Carolina  and  the  inner  ruling  circle  of 
Southern  slaveholders  have  reached  that  mental 
condition  which  the  ancients  deemed  insolence 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  279 

toward  the  Gods,  who  proceed  to  wipe  them  off 
the  face  of  the  earth.  Simms,  who  may  be  taken 
as  the  literary  voice  of  his  people,  has  become 
Zeus-defying  like  Capaneus  and  the  lesser  Ajax  ; 
he  is  ready  to  throw  down  his  gauntlet  to  the 
World-Spirit,  to  the  presiding  Genius  of  Civiliza 
tion,  and  meet  it  in  mortal  combat.  A  tragic 
fatuity  weaves  through  much  of  what  the  South 
said  and  did  in  these  three  Nemesis-laden  years. 
The  South,  then,  would  not,  we  might  almost 
say  could  not,  release  her  hold  on  national  Power, 
without  a  terrific  struggle.  If  she  were  no  longer 
able  to  rule  the  whole  nation,  the  United  States, 
she  would  halve  it,  and  make  a  nation  out  of  her 
part,  over  which  she  would  bear  unquestioned 
sway.  But  to  reach  such  a  mental  stage  she  had 
to  go  through  a  considerable  evolution,  which 
shows  her  transition  from  excusing  slavery  as  a 
necessary  evil,  to  justifying  it  as  a  positive  good. 
In  1820  (let  us  say)  the  South  suppressed  her 
moral  scruple  but  clung  to  and  carried  out  her 
political  end  in  extending  slavery.  Thus  the 
political  element  of  her  character  overbore  the 
moral  element,  for  the  sake  of  Power.  But  this 
was  not  the  conclusion  of  the  process.  Grad 
ually  the  political  element  succeeded  in  enlisting 
the  hitherto  suppressed  moral  element  in  its  be 
half,  and  slavery  was  defended  on  moral  grounds, 
enslaving  its  former  great  enemy,  morality  itself 
with  conscience  and  duty,  to  its  defence  and 


280          THE  TEN  YEARV   WAS.  -  PART  II. 

justification.  The  question  rises  in  these  days: 
Was  the  South  ever  really  convinced  by  its  argu 
ment,  or  was  there  a  deeper  depth  in  its  convict- 
tion  which  remained  untouched  to  the  last,  and 
which  will  rise  up  and  assert  itself  when  the  great 
burden  is  removed  from  its  soul?  A  good  deal 
said  by  many  representative  Southern  men  since 
the  War  would  seem  to  suggest  an  affirmative 
answer. 

We  can  see  how  it  came  about  that  the  South 
developed  great  political  skill  at  the  expense  of 
the  deeper  moral  trend  of  the  time,  which  she 
possessed  once  in  her  earlier  statesmen,  then 
suppressed,  then  perverted  to  her  own  purpose 
of  domination.  Politics  became  the  all-absorb 
ing  study  and  occupation  of  the  leading  South 
erners,  along  with  the  Law,  which,  however,  was 
made  the  servant  if  not  the  slave  of  the  grand 
political  end.  Nothing  can  be  plainer  than  that 
Chief-Justice  Taney  had  a  political  purpose 
underneath  the  Dred  Scot  decision.  He  was  of 
the  dominant  Southern  class  and  merely  voiced  its 
employment  of  the  Law  for  promoting  its  rule. 
The  Supreme  Court  was  made  the  instrument  for 
destroying  both  of  the  Northern  political  parties. 
Accordingly  we  have  to  say  that  the  South  in  its 
own  Folk-Soul  subjected,  or  perchance  enslaved, 
both  the  moral  and  the  enacted  Law,  both 
morality  and  legality,  to  its  supreme  design  of 
domination.  These  two  almost  incredible  tasks 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  281 

were  accomplishd,  or  seemed  to  be  accomplished 
in  that  same  prolific  period  of  transition  between 
1820  and  1850,  when  the  South  invoked,  or 
rather  impressed  both  Laws,  that  of  Conscience 
and  that  of  the  Constitution,  to  do  its  service.  A 
great  intellectual  feat  we  have  to  exclaim  admir 
ingly,  yet  it  could  not  persist  without  dethroning 
the  World-Spirit  and  upsetting  the  Divine  Order, 
which  the  South  half-consciously  had  challenged 
to  the  contest.  ' 

IV.  Another  peculiar  fact  in  this  development 
was  that  the  South  kept  its  dominating  motive 
in  the  background.  To  extend  the  blessings  of 
slavery,  and  thereby  to  put  upon  a  deeper  and 
more  lasting  foundation  our  republican  edifice, 
were  the  beneficent  missionary  motives  which  the 
South  danced  before  itself  and  others  who  might 
care  to  listen.  She  was  not  inclined  to  hold  up 
to  public  view  that  profoundest  motive  of  her 
soul,  though  it  often  broke  through  the  hedge 
of  her  lips.  Why  this  tendency  to  keep  it  back? 
Primarily  human  nature  is  prone  to  secrete  from 
vulgar  gaze  its  deepest  inner  springs,  and  the 
South  was  no  exception.  Always  playing  under 
the  open  propagandism  of  slavery  was  the  more 
or  less  concealed  motive  of  Power.  For  the 
South  was  in  a  minority  and  knew  it;  knew  also 
that  the  preponderance  of  the  North  was  increas 
ing  and  would  continue  to  increase.  If  Power 
belong^  to  the  majority,  the  South  had  no  right 


282  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

to  it  in  morals  or  in  law.  If  the  fundamental 
maxim  of  the  American  political  consciousness 
be,  that  the  majority  should  rule,  then  the  oli 
garchical  organism  of  Southern  society  had  to 
violate  that  consciousness  in  order  to  retain  its 
Power.  Nay,  more,  it  had  to  prepare  and  to 
keep  preparing  new  and  deeper  violations  in 
order  to  meet  the  increasing  vote  against  it. 
We  have  seen  in  the  history  of  Kansas  its  re 
peated  attempts  to  thwart  the  will  of  the  major 
ity.  The  democratic  numbers  of  the  North  were 
pitted  against  aristocratic  skill  in  organization, 
which  was  necessarily  more  secret. 

The  motive  of  power  was  accordingly  not  so 
openly  avowed,  since  it  meant  a  disregard  of  the 
very  principle  of  Government  by  the  People,  the 
rule  of  the  majority.  Such  a  doctrine  would 
not  be  palatable  to  the  white  non-slaveholding 
class  of  the  South,  more  than  two-thirds  of  its 
voting  population.  For  the  Southern  Oligarchy 
had  two  great  majorities  to  look  after  and  to 
counteract,  its  own  and  the  Northern.  Both  it 
held  in  subordination  by  its  consummate  political 
strategy  for  many  years.  Finally  the  Northern 
majority  broke  loose,  and  asserted  its  power  and 
its  principle,  but  only  through  a  long  and 
desperate  war.  The  Southern  non-slaveholding 
majority  largely  fought  this  war  under  the  com 
mand  of  the  oligarchical  minority,  when  it  too 
was  enfranchised  through  the  war  bv  the  North 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  288 

against  which  it  fought.  We  hold  that  this  is 
the  true  liberation  of  the  South,  far  more  im 
portant  than  that  of  the  negro,  though  much 
more  noise  is  made  about  the  latter.  That  which 
was  the  poor  non-slaveholding  majority  of  the 
South  is  now  educating  itself,  is  learning  to  work 
with  effect  and  getting  property,  and  above  all 
is  becoming  conscious  of  its  freedom.  This  may 
fairly  be  called  the  greatest  boon  of  the  war  to 
the  South,  and  it  has  conferred  some  other  great 
ones. 

On  the  whole  the  North  did  not  have  this 
desire  for  Power  so  strongly  developed, 
never  having  really  possessed  national  author 
ity,  and  so  never  having  been  spoiled  by  it. 
Even  under  Northern  Presidents  there  had  been 
substantially  Southern  rule.  The  North  was 
dominated  more  by  the  moral  end  than  by  the 
political;  not  till  these  two  ends  fell  into  bitter 
conflict,  did  the  North  begin  to  feel  the  necessity 
of  national  supremacy  for  overcoming  that  con 
flict.  Undoubtedly  there  were  statesmen  of  the 
North  who  sought  the  great  prize  of  national 
headship,  or,  as  the  phrase  goes,  were  stung  by 
the  Presidential  bee.  This  ambition,  however, 
in  the  generation  before  the  War  could  only  be 
gratified  by  subserviency  to  the  South.  Still 
with  the  increase  of  Free-States  over  Slave- 
States,  the  situation  began  to  change.  Seward 
seems  to  have  been  the  first  important  states- 


284  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PAST  II. 

man  who  distinctly  saw  himself  President  with 
out  the  aid  of  the  South.  He  boasted  in  the 
Senate  (Feb.  2,  1858),  that  "we  are  fighting 
for  a  majority  of  Free  States;  they  are  already 
sixteen  to  fifteen,"  not  counting  Kansas  which 
is  destined  to  be  a  Free- State,  with  two  others 
soon  to  be  added.  Seward  did  not  then  say  :  all 
of  which  will  elect  me  President  —  but  he  cer 
tainly  thought  it  and  the  Southern  senators  also 
felt  the  possibility  of  such  a  result,  and  with  it 
the  end  of  the  national  rule  of  the  Oligarchy  to 
which  they  belonged.  Seward's  boast,  or  per 
chance  taunt  must  have  set  them  all  to  thinking 
about  the  future,  particularly  about  the  coming 
election  of  President,  who,  however,  will  not  be 
Seward. 

V.  The  South  had  developed  a  peculiar  social 
system,  different  from,  and  in  many  respects 
opposite  to  the  one  at  the  North.  To  maintain 
and  to  extend  this  social  system  called  out  and 
developed  the  political  skill  of  the  Southerners. 
For  the  function  of  the  State  is  to  protect  the 
Social  Order,  and  to  secure  to  every  member 
of  it  his  effort,  his  labor,  his  Will.  Hence  it 
comes  that  the  social  sjrstem  of  the  South  had  to 
be  defended  at  every  point  not  by  a  trained  mili 
tary  but  by  a  trained  political  army  officered  with 
its  best  men  from  the  top  down.  The  excellence 
of  the  Southern  Senators  and  Representatives  and 


CHAPTER  II.  —  THE  SOUTH.  285 

their  long  tenure  of  office,  have  often  been 
remarked. 

The  most  striking  social  fact  of  the  South 
has  been  already  mentioned  ;  the  sharp  division 
into  three  great  Classes  —  slaveholders,  non- 
slaveholders  and  slaves.  The  first  two  were  of 
the  white  race,  the  third  of  the  black;  hence  the 
difference  of  race  entered  into  this  Society,  and 
had  a  tendency  to  harden  the  distinctions  of 
Class  into  the  impassible  limits  of  Caste.  Un 
doubtedly  the  three  Classes  merged  at  the  edges, 
but  their  separation  was  very  pronounced,  and 
up  to  the  time  of  the  war  was  deepening  and 
crystallizing.  Any  taint  of  negro  blood  threw 
the  person  into  the  third  Class,  while  the  second 
Class  on  the  whole  was  sinking  into  a  more  hope 
less  poverty  and  ignorance. 

While  the  separation  of  Classes  was  becoming 
wider,  their  production  was  becoming  narrower. 
The  South  was  limited  to  one  chief  occupation, 
agriculture.  There  was  little  manufacturing  on 
an  extensive  scale.  Not  the  diversification  of 
industries  but  their  confinement  was  the  eco 
nomic  law  of  this  Societv.  Even  the  one  chief 

w 

occupation,  agriculture,  was  not  diversified,  but 
had  a  tendency  to  limit  itself  to  a  few  products. 
In  the  extreme  South,  cotton,  rice  and  sugar, 
were  quite  the  sole  products  deemed  worthy 
of  the  planter's  regard;  they  may  be 
called  the  aristocratic  product  of  the  South- 


THE  TSN  TEARS*  WAE.  -  PAST  ft. 

ern  soil,  reflecting,  while  also  moulding  the 
character  of  their  producer.  Indeed  these 
staples  showed  within  their  exclusive  circle 
a  tendency  toward  the  domination  of  one  —  cot 
ton.  This  fact  was  expressed  before  the  war  in 
the  pithy  statement:  cotton  is  king.  So  the 
aristocracy  of  production  in  the  South  revealed 
a  movement  toward  a  monarchy  of  production. 
But  a  democracy  of  production  through  a  many- 
branched  industry,  such  as  was  seen  in  the  North, 
did  not  and  could  not  exist  in  a  Society  of  this 
kind.  The  first  brings  a  concentration  of  Power 
into  the  hands  of  the  few  and  fewer,  and  ulti 
mately  of  the  one ;  the  second  signifies  a  distri 
bution  of  Power  into  the  hands  of  the  many  and 
the  more,  and  ultimately  of  all  who  will  work. 
Thus  the  South  in  its  social  system  has  developed 
a  kind  of  hierarchical  order  which  moves  from 
the  top  downward,  descending  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest ;  while  the  North  in  its  social  system 
moves  in  the  opposite  direction,  from  the  bottom 
upward,  the  lowest  having  an  open  road  to  the 
highest. 

The  foregoing  thought  we  may  formulate  in 
the  f  ollowing  way :  the  South  tended  to  homo 
geneity  of  production,  but  to  heterogeneity  of 
Classes  participating  in  this  work  of  production; 
the  North,  on  the  contrary,  tended  to  hetero 
geneity  of  production,  but  homogeneity  of  Classes 
which  diversified  this  production.  The  South : 


CHAPTER  IT.  -  THE  SOUTH.  2«T 

one  product  (or  few)  with  hierarchy  of  unequal 
Classes  ;  the  North  :  many  different  products  with 
one  equal  Class  essentially.  In  1858  these  two 
opposing  social  systems  had  quite  fully  unfolded 
their  respective  characters  and  purposes,  and 
were  aligning  themselves  for  the  great  fight  over 
the  control  of  the  destiny  of  the  Nation. 

Social  intercommunication  could  not  be  highly 
developed  in  the  South.  Roads  were  poor,  rail 
ways  were  few,  the  methods  of  transportation 
primitive.  The  mansion  of  the  great  planter 
stood  alone  in  solitary  rural  grandeur,  or  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  hovels  of  his  slaves.  It  was  an 
image  of  its  lord,  separate,  independent,  atomic, 
unassoeiated  with  other  houses  on  an  equality  in 
urban  fashion.  The  principle  of  human  asso 
ciation  was  not  a  universal  force  in  the  South, 
but  limited  chiefly  to  the  great  slaveholders,  who 
organized  themselves  into  a  compact  body  for 
their  supreme  political  purpose. 

The  South,  through  its  exclusive  agricultural 
bent,  made  itself  immediately  dependent  on 
Nature.  It  accepted  what  came  with  reliance  on 
Providence;  it  was  religious  and  conservative, 
attached  to  old  ways,  proud  of  its  ancestral  lin 
eage,  studious  of  the  genealogical  tree,  unfriendly 
to  new  ideas,  especially  to  the  new-fangled  ideas 
of  New  England.  No  manufactures  trans 
formed  Nature,  and  therewith  transformed  the 
man,  giving  a  consciousness  of  superiority  over 


288  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  -  PART II. 

Nature.  The  wealth  of  the  South  came  from  its 
raw  materials,  which  were  sent  out  of  it,  often  to 
be  returned  as  finished  products  for  its  use. 
Thus  the  South  with  all  its  feeling  of  independ 
ence  was  really  very  dependent,  first  upon 
Nature  then  upon  other  nations.  Self-dependent 
or  self-sufficing  as  a  whole  it  could  not  be  called  — 
a  fact  which  the  War  brought  home  to  it  pain 
fully.  It  had  refused  to  leuru  to  supply  its  own 
wants  though  a  diversified  industry.  The  small 
artisan  and  the  small  merchant  were  indeed  pres 
ent,  but  limited  to  the  limited  needs  of  the  one 
class,  the  agricultural.  There  was  no  multifa 
rious  communal  life  with  its  varied  consumption 
and  production,  and  with  its  members  quite  upon 
the  same  general  level.  On  the  contrary  the 
South  openly  proclaimed  that  its  society  and  all 
rightly  constituted  society  had  to  have  a 
Class  for  its  menial  duties,  was  in  fact 
built  upon  a  Class  of  this  kind  as  its  mud-sill. 
Says  Senator  Hammond:  "Such  a  Class  you 
must  have,  or  you  would  not  have  that  other 
Class  which  leads  progress,  civilization,  refine 
ment.  Fortunately  for  the  South,  she  found  a 
race  adapted  to  that  purpose  to  her  hand."  Thus 
the  two  main  Classes  of  the  South,  at  least  in  the 
mind  of  the  Oligarchs,  were  those  of  master  and 
slave;  the  nou-slaveholding  Class  though  white 
and  the  largest,  was  seldom  spoken  of,  and  had, 
as  Helper  complains,  almost  no  political  weight; 


CHAPTER  II.  -   THE  SOUTH.  289 

still  it  was  present  and  was  emphatically  ««  classi 
fied  "  in  contrast  with  the  two  other  Classes. 

This  tendency  of  the  South  to  Classism  had 
not  escaped  the  observation  of  Lincoln,  who  had 
inculcated  that  all  the  States  and  all  the  People 
of  the  States  should  be  ultimately  homogeneous 
as  regards  freedom.  Douglas,  however,  main 
tained  in  his  Debate  with  Lincoln  that  States  and 
People  should  continue  both  slave  and  free, 
thus  producing  a  happy  diversity  in  our  land 
instead  of  the  dull  uniformity  of  liberty.  Again, 
Lincoln  in  a  letter  characterizes  the  Southern 
tendency  as  "  the  supplanting  of  the  principles 
of  free  government,  and  the  restoring  those  of 
classification,  caste,  and  legitimacy."  (Cited 
in  Nicolayand  Hay's  Life,  II,  182.) 

Accordingly,  the  fundamental  point  of  view 
from  which  we  must  look  at  the  South  is  its 
Classism,  or  its  distinctions  of  Class  which  have 
become  so  pronounced  in  its  social  organization. 
Each  of  these  Classes  has  its  own  process  within 
itself,  yet  also  with  one  another,  and  finally  all  of 
them  are  in  a  decided  process  with  the  North. 
The  three  mentioned  'Classes  will  now  be  con 
sidered  separately. 

19 


290  THE  TEN  YEAlltf    WAIL  —  PAR T  II. 


Slavcbol&ere. 

The  great  political  function  of  the  slaveholding 
Class  was  to  rule  majorities,  and  to  keep  from 
being  ruled  by  them.  This  was  carried  so  far 
that  the  slaveholder  himself  was  not  ruled  by  a 
majority  of  his  own  Class,  but  by  a  minority  of  it 
which  constituted  the  Oligarchy.  This  form  of 
government  we  have  already  seen  springing  from 
the  relation  of  master  and  slave,  especially  when 
the  master  is  of  a  different  and  superior  race. 
The  slave-owner  of  black  men  is  born  and 
trained  to  be  a  minority  ruler.  This  fact  is 
manifested  already  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  in  which  the  ownership  of  negroes 
confers  political  power  upon  the  master,  though 
he  does  not  cast  their  votes  directly.  He  may 
own  1,000  negroes  and  1,000  blooded  horses,  the 
values  of  both  being  equal ;  but  the  negroes  mean 
600  votes  in  the  apportionment  of  national 
political  power  to  his  State  and  to  his  Congres 
sional  District.  He  might  be  conceived  to  have 
enough  slaves  to  make  a  District  of  his  own,  or 
perchance  even  a  State.  Thus  he  is  created  an 
aristocrat,  if  not  an  autocrat,  by  the  Consti 
tution,  at  whose  formation  he  was  already  strong 
enough  to  compel  such  a  provision,  against  the 
wishes  of  a  majority  of  the  Convention.  This 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVEHOLDERS.       291 

was  his  first  great  minority  triumph  in  the  Nation, 
just  at  its  birth,  which  he  threatened  to  prevent, 
unless  he  were  grunted  that  minority  power. 

Still  further  and  by  the  same  principle,  in  his 
own  slaveholding  Class  the  possessor  of  1,000 
slaves  is  endowed  with  far  more  political  power 
than  the  possessor  of  100  or  of  10  slaves,  other 
things  being  equal.  Hence  there  arises  an  aris 
tocracy  within  an  aristocracy,  which  has  been 
already  named  the  Oligarchy,  whose  object  is 
primarily  to  concentrate  within  itself  the  political 
power  of  its  Class. 

Looking  at  this  slaveholding  Class  as  a  whole, 
we  may  grasp  it  as  a  series  of  concentric  circles 
which  move  outward  from  the  center  of  Power, 
diminishing  till  they  vanish  into  the  non-slave- 
holding  Class.  In  a  general  way  the  number  of 
slaves  determined  the  rank  of  the  owner,  though 
his  influence  depended  also  on  his  ability.  The 
central  circle  had  a  membership  of  8,000  nearly, 
who  were  the  owners  of  fifty  slaves  and  more 
(census  of  1850).  As  there  were  some  six  mil 
lions  of  whites  then  in  the  South,  one  out  of 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  would  belong  to  this 
central  circle  of  Power. 

The  second  or  middle  circle  may  be  taken  to 
include  those  who  owned  five  or  more  slaves  and 
less  than  fifty.  It  was  much  larger  than  the  pre 
ceding  circle,  as  it  must  have  contained  in  1850 
some  165,000  slaveholders,  most  of  whom  did  not 


292  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  IT. 

labor  with  their  hands,  but  followed  at  a  distance 
the  style  of  the  great  slaveholders,  whose  circle 
they  were  ambitious  to  enter  and  thus  attain  the 
highest  social  and  political  rank  of  their  system. 
Such  was  the  general  trend  though  with  many 
exceptions  doubtless. 

The  third  or  lowest  or  outermost  circle  of  slave 
holders  embraces  those  who  had  one  to  four  slaves. 
In  1850  there  were  68, 820  owners  of  one  slave, 
105,683  owners  of  two,  three  and  four  slaves, 
making  together  174,503  persons  who  belonged 
to  this  circle,  which  was  thus  more  than  half 
of  the  entire  number  of  slaveholders  (reported 
at  347,525).  This  circle  began  to  show  consid 
erable  differences  from  both  the  preceding  circles. 
It  had  not  the  means  nor  the  servants  to  keep  up 
the  traditional  splendor  of  the  wealthy  Southern 
ers.  Its  members,  especially  those  who  followed 
agriculture  and  engaged  in  no  profession  or  other 
business,  had  to  labor  with  their  hands;  perhaps 
a  majority  of  this  class  worked  in  the  fields  with 
their  one  slave  or  more,  and  thus  became  distinct 
in  character  and  aim  from  the  Southern  gentle 
man  who  occupied  himself  chiefly  with  social  and 
political  functions.  Here,  then,  the  break  starts 
in  the  ranks  of  the  slaveholders  themselves,  who 
in  this  outermost  circle  begin  to  fuse  with  the 
laboring  non-slaveholding  Class. 

Such  were  the 'three  circles  which  we  have 
sought  to  look  at  in  their  descending  or  oligarchic 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVEHOLDERS.       293 

order  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  or  from  the 
center  to  the  outer  rim.  But  the  leaders  belonged 
mostly  to  the  first  two  circles,  though  with 
leadership  another  principle  plays  in,  talent. 
The  South  selected  its  ablest  men  and  sent  them 
to  the  seat  of  government  continuously.  Hence 
arose  at  Washington  a  ne\v  circle,  that  of  the 
political  leaders,  whose  head  in  the  Fifties 
already  was  Jefferson  Davis,  and  whose  connec 
tion  with  the  Kansas  troubles  has  been  already 
narrated.  So  we  have  to  think  that  within  the 
three  circles  of  the  aristocracy  ramifying  the 
South  everywhere  was  the  controlling  circle 
centered  at  Washington,  whose  power  wielded 
every  department  of  government,  legislative,  ex 
ecutive,  and  judicial,  and  ruled  the  whole  Nation. 
It  is  this  ruling  power  based  upon  a  certain 
social  system,  which  the  North,  based  upon  a 
different  social  system,  is  getting  ready  to  over 
throw.  For  the  one,  resting  on  slave  labor,  works 
aristocratically,  bearing  downward  from  above; 
while  the  other,  resting  on.  free  labor,  works 
democratically,  bearing  upward  from  below. 
Now  it  is  the  complete  tragedy  of  this  wonder 
fully  organized  Oligarchy  which  the  Ten  Years' 
War  is  to  show,  at  first  by  ballot  challenging  and 
overthrowing  its  claim  to  govern  the  Nation,  and 
then  by  arms  destroying  its  rule  over  the  non- 
slaveholding  whites,  over  its  own  slaves,  and 
over  itself. 


294         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

The  character  of  the  Oligarchy  in  1860  had 
been  developing  a  long  time,  inasmuch  as  we 
have  already  seen  it  strong  enough  to  assert  its 
principle  in  the  formation  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  The  South  was  at  the  start 
more  populous  and  more  wealthy  than  the  North. 
In  the  first  Census  (1790)  Virginia  had  more 
than  twice  the  population  of  New  York,  more 
than  Massachusetts  and  New  York  put  together. 
The  commerce  and  wealth  of  Virginia  were  in 
1790  proportionately  great;  it  was  in  fact  the 
first  commercial  State  in  the  Union.  The  city 
of  Norfolk  was  a  more  important  seaport  than 
the  city  of  New  York.  South  Carolina  stood 
second,  and  the  value  of  foreign  imports  into 
Charleston  was  greater  by  one-half  in  1760 
than  in  1850.  In  general  the  South  had  at  the 
beginning  the  centers  of  commercial  distribu- 

O  O 

tion,  ere  these  changed  to  the  North,  with  the 
ever-increasing  majority  of  voters. 

Thus  the  South  was  not  in  the  minority  at 
the  commencement  of  the  Nation.  The  per 
sistence  of  South  Carolina  at  the  Constitutional 
Convention  (1787)  in  the  three-fifths  clause, 
which  really  confirmed  the  slaveholding  Oligarchy 
in  its  national  power,  was  directed  quite  as  much 
against  Virginia  as  against  the  North.  But 
when  the  South  as  a  whole  sank  more  and  more 
into  a  political  minority,  it  sought  to  retain  its 
supremacy  by  skill  and  strategy.  It  had  to  yield 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVEHOLDERS.       295 

in  wealth  and  numbers  and  in  many  other  things, 
but  it  would  not  surrender  its  rule.  This  it  could 
keep  through  the  organization  of  the  Oligarchy, 
which  finally  became  universal  in  the  South, 
though  Virginia  was  at  first  opposed  to  it,  and  in 
fact  did  not  need  it,  having  the  unquestioned 
primacy  in  population,  wealth,  commerce,  and 
what  was  best  of  all,  political  intelligence. 

What  was  the  ground  of  this  rise  on  the  one 
side  and  decline  on  the  other?  The  South  itself 
would  now  say,  as  nearly  all  of  its  early  great 
men  said:  slavery  —  absent  there,  present  here. 
This  caused  the  emigration  of  many  of  the  South 's 
best  people  to  the  North ;  it  produced  a  sad  de 
terioration  of  the  non-slaveholding  whites  who 
remained  behind;  it  changed  for  the  worse 
the  character  of  the  slaveholders  themselves 
with  the  successive  generations,  fostering  the 
habit  of  domination,  and  of  minority  rule,  in 
consistent  with  free  institutions.  Over  domestic 
life  also  it  often  cast  its  dark  shadow. 

The  Southerner  of  the  upper  circles,  having 
leisure  and  inclination,  cultivated  specially  his 
social  powers,  in  which  he  attained  a  high  degree 
of  excellence.  He  lived  in  public  as  the  leading 
man  of  his  community;  his  house  was  a  place  of 
generous  hospitality ;  his  bearing  was  usually 
full  of  courtesy,  with  a  mild  poise  and  ease  very 
fascinating,  except  when  the  aristocratic  haught 
iness,  always  lurking  underneath  his  winning 


296  THE  TEX  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

exterior,  might  have  an  eruption,  which  on  cer 
tain  topics  was  not  hard  to  provoke.  Still  he 
cultivated  the  art  of  being  a  gentleman;  a  vein 
of  romantic  chivalry  ran  through  his  character, 
and  left  its  impress  upon  his  deed  and  word,  and 
often  upon  his  attire.  Even  after  the  war  the 
South  had  its  tournaments  of  chivalry,  in  which 
the  victorious  knight  shared  his  honors  with  the 
lady  of  his  heart,  crowning  her  queen  of  Love 
and  Beauty.  The  Southerners  of  the  aristocratic 
Class  were  generally  educated  men,  versed  in 
literature  and  science,  not  indeed  for  the  purpose 
of  practising  them,  but  for  ornament.  His  real 
business,  like  that  of  the  old  Roman,  was  lead 
ership,  and  when  he  wished  to  say  something  to 
his  people,  he  gathered  them  about  himself  and 
made  a  speech,  which  often  showed  both  thought 
and  literary  excellence,  not  for  their  own  sake, 
however,  but  for  their  political  end.  Now  liter 
ature,  art,  philosophy,  science,  refuse  to  be 
enslaved  to  some  foreign  purpose;  they  can 
hardly  be  made  to  bloom  unless  they  be  cultivated 
for  their  own  sake  and  in  their  own  free  right. 
So  it  came  that  the  South  had  almost  no  literary 
or  artistic  or  scientific  expression;  hardly  yet  can 
it  show  an  adequate  historian  for  its  great  deeds, 
which  still  are  mainly  read  in  Northern  writers, 
\v!io,  even  when  impartial  in  judgment,  cannot 
help  being  colored  by  feeling. 

The  spirit  of   lordly  domination    crushed  out 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVEHOLDERS.      297 

the  free  growth  of  man's  great  spiritual  disci 
plines,  which  will  not  be  dominated  from  the  out 
side.  There  could  be  no  science  of  sociology  in 
the  South,  unless  it  were  favorable  to  the  system. 
It  was  notorious  that  freedom  of  opinion,  par 
ticularly  on  slavery,  was  not  allowed  in  the 
South.  The  Oligarchy,  like  the  Hierarchy, 
had  its  index  expurgatorius,  dictated  by  the 
supposed  requirements  of  its  peculiar  institution. 
There  was  a  great  outcry  against  school-books 
originating  in  the  North,  although  the  Northern 
publisher  showed  himself  exceedingly  pliable. 
It  was  indeed  a  difficult  situation.  What  would 
a  school-reader  be  without  the  gems  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  eloquence,  which  were  mostly  inspired  by 
liberty,  the  race's  deepest  instinct?  Homer  him 
self,  the  fountain  of  European  Literature,  would 
have  to  be  tabooed  or  at  least  expurgated  for 
singing  "  the  day  that  makes  a  man  a  slave, 
takes  half  his  worth  away."  The  result  was 
the  sources  of  all  artistic  and  literary  ex 
pression  seemed  to  be  hermetically  sealed, 
even  if  we  may  note  worthy  and  even  heroic 
efforts  to  lift  the  oppressive  extinguisher  weigh 
ing  down  and  suffocating  originality  at  its 
creative  sources.  There  came  to  be  almost  no 
public  for  reading  and  seeing  the  world's  great 
masterpieces.  Olmsted,  who  rode  on  horseback 
from  Texas  to  Virgina  not  long  before  the  war, 
has  left  us  a  curious  account  of  what  ho  did  not 


298  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

see  in  the  houses  of  his  entertainers,  evidently 
the  humbler  slaveholders,  but  representing  by 
far  the  largest  class  numerically.  He  found  no 
edition  of  Shakespeare,  no  engraving,  no  good 
copy  of  any  famous  picture,  no  pianoforte. 
There  was  some  music,  but  the  negroes  made  it 
and  perchance  some  low  whites,  who  played  the 
fiddle  for  reels,  jigs  and  plantation  dances. 

In  all  these  matters  a  revolution  has  been 
wrought  in  half  a  century,  even  if  a  good  deal 
remains  still  to  be  done.  The  best  part  of  the 
old  South  will  not  be  lost  in  the  new  order;  it 
will  retain  its  courtesy,  its  gentility,  its  hospital 
ity,  and  even  something  of  its  old  chivalry,  we 
hope.  The  essentials  of  Southern  character 
were  native  and  inbred;  we  refuse  to  believe  that 
they  depended  for  their  existence  upon  negro 
slavery  or  upon  the  negro  in  any  necessary  way. 
It  needs  but  a  small  journey  through  the  South  to 
see  that  the  Southern  gentleman  and  Southern 
lady  are  still  alive,  even  under  changed  outward 
circumstances.  It  is  natural  for  them  to  look 
back  to  their  past  with  a  fond  regret,  and  to 
paint  it  in  ideal  colors;  but  ask  them  if  they 
would  wish  to  see  it  really  restored. 

Statistics,  though  composed  of  figures  and 
seemingly  inflexible,  can  nevertheless  be  made 
to  show  their  subject  in  various  aspects.  If 
the  reader  thinks  that  the  foregoing  Oligar 
chy,  made  up  of  the  holders  of  fifty  slaves 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVEHOLDERS.       299 

and  more,  is  too  small,  let  him  join  to  it  the 
holders  of  twenty  to  fifty,  given  as  29,723 
in  the  census  of  1850.  Then  he  will  have 
an  Oligarchy  of  37,000  and  some  hundreds. 
The  general  result,  however,  will  be  the  same. 
De  Bow,  a  Southerner,  who  was  the  super 
intendent  of  the  census  of  1850,  has  given 
this  classification  of  slaveholders  according  to  the 
number  of  slaves,  as  if  he  wished  to  bring  into 
strong  relief  the  various  gradations  of  the  slave- 
holding  Class.  According  to  him,  there  were  only 
two  holders  of  1,000  slaves  and  more,  and  nine 
holders  of  500  up  to  1,000.  In  this  regard 
slavery  was  different  in  antiquity,  if  Athenseus 
may  be  believed  when  he  says  he  knew  many 
Romans  who  possessed  ten  or  even  twenty 
thousand  slaves  (cited  by  Gibbon) .  These,  even 
if  they  did  not  confer  any  direct  political  power, 
seem  to  have  bestowed  social  prestige  upon  the 
owner,  since  he  is  said  to  have  held  so  many 
"  not  for  use  but  for  ostentation."  It  came  to 
be  the  ambition  of  the  imperial  Roman  to  have 
his  own  estate  a  little  Roman  Empire  with  himself 
as  Emperor,  particularly  when  he  was  deprived 
of  any  share  in  the  government  of  the  state. 
The  inherited  domination  of  centuries  thus  found 
an  outlet. 

Another  statistical  point  may  be  mentioned. 
De  Bow,  in  his  list  of  slaveholders,  includes 
both  slave-owners  and  slave-hirers,  the  latter  not 


300  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAE.  —  PART  II. 

possessing  any  slaves  and  hence  having  no  direct 
property  interest  in  slavery.  This  Class  was  es 
timated  at  nearly  one-half  of  all  the  slave-hold 
ers,  to  which  Class  it  does  not  strictly  belong,  and 
from  which  its  numbers  ought  to  be  deducted. 
If  this  deduction  be  made,  with  another  small 
one  on  account  of  repetition,  Helper  esti 
mates  the  number  of  actual  slaveholders  (slave 
owners)  to  be  186,551,  instead  of  DeBow's 
total  of  347,525.  Hence  comes  that  statement, 
so  frequent  in  the  campaign  literature  and 
speeches  of  the  Republicans  in  1860,  that  "less 
than  187,000  slaveholders  ruled  the  country" 
with  its  millions  of  voters.  In  reality,  however, 
the  Oligarchy  proper  was  much  less. 

Such  a  state  of  society,  in  America  at  least, 
must  be  called  an  inverted  pyramid,  which  re 
quired  to  be  held  up  by  very  skillful  propping. 
Evidently  its  organization  carries  within  itself 
the  impulse  to  its  own  fall.  It  is  self-contra 
dictory  and  hence  self-destructive.  It  asserts 
that  property  in  slaves  is  the  same  as  property  in 
horses  and  cows ;  still  the  master  holds  the  slave 
accountable  and  punishes  him,  thus  regarding 
him  morally  as  a  responsible  and  therefore  a  free 
being.  Also  the  slave  was  recognized  as  an  insti 
tutional  being,  with  a  right  to  have  a  family, 
even  if  this  relation  was  often  deeply  violated  by 
the  master  himself  through  separating  the  slave's 
domestic  ties,  and  through  his  own  passion. 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVEHOLDERS.      301 

Here  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  an 
ominous  fact  which  History  cannot  neglect. 
The  slaveholder  commingled  his  blood  with  that 
of  the  African.  His  own  color  and  his  own 
character  were  getting  inoculated  upon  the  black 
race  through  illicit  intercourse  with  his  negro 
women.  It  was  a  common  saying  in  Virginia 
that  her  noblest  blood  ran  in  the  veins  of  slaves. 
The  extent  of  this  commingling  may  be  esti 
mated  from  two  facts :  the  mulattos  were 
one-tenth  of  the  colored  population  of  the 
Slave-States  in  1850,  and  one-eighth  in  1860, 
and  thus  were  on  the  road  to  becoming  the  ma 
jority  of  blacks  when  the  War  intervened  and 
stopped  this  peculiar  development  of  the  South. 
In  the  Northern  tier  of  Slave-States  the  propor 
tion  of  mulattos  was  greater  than  in  the  Gulf 
States. 

This  process  can  be  regarded  in  no  other  light 
than  the  undoing  of  slavery  by  itself,  through 
the  slow  transformation  of  the  black  race  into 
the  white.  Not  through  moral  conviction  but 
through  immoral  passion  the  system  was  under 
mining  itself.  Nature  had  clandestinely  started 
to  do  a  work  of  redemption  which  neither  ethics, 
nor  religion,  nor  government  were  able  to  do. 
Indeed  they  had  all  forbidden  any  such  method, 
which,  however,  asserted  and  increased  its  power 
in  spite  of  prohibitions  moral,  religious,  and 
statutory.  Those  brown  and  even  ruddy  faces, 


302  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  //. 

often  with  aristocratic  lineaments,  were  indeed 
tell-tales  on  the  white  master,  but  they  also 
bespoke  a  far  deeper  meaning,  prophetic  of  the 
doom  of  slavery.  Madison,  with  a  presentment 
of  the  coming  judgment,  wished  for  the  power  of 
turning  every  black  skin  white  and  thus  solving 
the  problem  of  the  races  by  obliterating 
their  difference.  He  did  not  seem  to  recognize 
that  his  neighbor  Virginians  were  fulfilling  his 
pious  wish  in  their  own  fashion.  And  after 
more  than  four  decades  of  freedom,  those  faces 
and  their  descendants  are  with  us,  still  prophetic, 
not  now  of  slavery's  doom,  but  of  some  far-off 
fulfillment  of  racial  destiny  of  which  one  at 
present  may  be  permitted  only  to  dream. 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  NON-SLAVEHOLDEBS.     303 


We  may  now  look  at  the  second  chief  Class  of 
the  South,  the  non-slaveholding  whites.  What 
is  their  condition  in  such  a  society?  First  of 
all  they  are  the  great  majority  and  have  the  bal 
lot;  still  they  are  ruled  and  in  the  main  led  by 
the  minority.  The  chief  local  problem  of  the 
Oligarchy  was  to  hold  well  in  hand  this  white 
majority  of  their  own  section.  They  succeeded 
in  fostering  and  keeping  alive  something  of  the 
feudal  spirit  of  loyalty  and  service  in  their  poor 
population ;  for  each  great  slaveholder  was  a 
kind  of  medieval  baron  in  his  neighborhood, 
being  its  educated  man  and  its  political  leader. 
His  mansion  (or  castle)  was  also  the  social 
center  and  dispensed  a  generous  hospitality. 
All  this  came  with  the  first  settlement  of  the 
South,  which  was  largely  aristocratic,  manorial, 
in  contrast  specially  with  that  of  New  England. 
It  was  this  surviving  feudal  spirit  of  loyalty  to 
the  lord  paramount  and  to  his  cause  which  in 
duced  so  many  non-slaveholders  to  follow  him 
to  the  Great  War,  and  to  fight  his  battles  with 
such  desperate  valor.  For  certainly  his  cause 
was  not  theirs.  Still  this  peculiar  sentiment  led 
the  majority  to  pour  out  lavishly  their  blood  for 


304  THK  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

a  minority  to  rule  over  them,  really  combating 
their  liberators. 

Another  fact  may  be  noted  in  the  present  con 
nection.  In  the  regular  army  of  the  United 
States  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  the  enlisted 
men  from  the  South  were  in  the  minority  de 
cidedly,  while  the  officers  from  the  South  were 
in  the  majority,  the  latter  being  almost  wholly 
of  the  aristocratic  class  of  slaveholders.  That 
is,  the  privates  were  largely  northern  and  the 
officers  largely  southern.  Herein  lies  the  reason 
for  the  statement  made  by  Lincoln,  that  no  en 
listed  man,  as  far  as  he  knew,  ever  quit  his 
colors  to  enter  the  ranks  of  secession,  while 
half  of  the  officers  of  the  regular  army  went 
with  the  South  into  rebellion.  The  non-slave 
holder  showed  that  his  personal  sentiment  was 
stronger  than  his  national,  as  he  would  follow 
his  slaveholding  suzerain  to  battle,  but  did  not 
enlist  in  his  country's  service.  The  medieval 
army  was  made  up  of  lords  and  their  personal 
retainers,  and  the  forces  of  the  South  had  some 
thing  of  the  same  character. 

There  were  certain  localities  of  the  South, 
however,  which  having  no  large  slaveholders, 
did  not  foster  this  peculiar  spirit  of  personal 
loyalty,  but  rather  the  opposite.  In  this  class 
the  mountaineers,  mentioned  later,  are  to  be 
placed,  with  their  rude  but  very  refractory  in 
dependence,  which  often  turned  to  bitter  hatred 


THE  SOUTH.  -  THE  NON -SLAVEHOLDERS.     305 

of  the  slaveholding  Oligarchy  of  the  rich  low 
lands.  But  the  non-slaveholding  whites  who 
were  within  the  sphere  of  influence  exercised 
personally  by  the  large  slaveholder,  followed 
him  as  their  leader  to  the  War,  and  fought  for 
him  and  his  cause  with  unparalleled  bravery  and 
endurance,  making  a  record  for  themselves  of 
which  even  their  foes,  who  suffered  most  by  it, 
are  proud. 

All  this  reveals  in  the  non-slaveholding  white 
a  very  beautiful  trait,  personal  loyalty,  a  virtue 
we  consider  it,  not  to  be  dispensed  with  in  this 
terrestrial  life  of  ours.  Still  in  him  it  was 
narrow,  even  if  he  extended  it  till  it  embraced  his 
State,  so  that  he  became  a  warm  defender  of 
State-Eights.  To  this  doctrine  also,  within  its 
just  limits,  no  true  American  will  take  objection. 
But  why  not  extend  loyalty  till  it  encompasses 
the  Union,  the  Nation?  For  all  three  loyalties, 
to  Person,  to  State,  and  to  Nation,  ought  to  beat 
in  the  heart  of  the  complete  citizen,  working 
together  harmoniously  in  a  total  round  of 
service. 

Next  we  must  grasp  the  fact  that  this  second 
great  class  of  the  South,  composed  of  the  white 
non-slaveholders,  numbered  in  1850  about  four 
and  one-quarter  millions,  which  was  considerably 
more  than  the  total  black  population,  numbering 
nearly  three  and  one-half  millions,  and  was  a 
good  deal  more  than  twice  the  three  circles  of 


306  THE  TEN  YEARS*   WAR.  —  PAST  II. 

slaveholders,  who  with  their  families  could  not 
have  numbered  two  millions.  In  fact,  not  one 
million,  if  the  slave-hirers  be  deducted  from 
them.  The  total  population  (1850)  of  the  South 
is  put  at  a  little  more  than  nine  and  a  half 
millions ;  thus  the  white  non-slaveholders  almost 
equal  the  slaveholders  and  their  slaves  together 
(more  than  equal  them,  if  Helper's  estimate  be 
taken ) . 

Here  then,  are  the  People  of  the  South,  the 
free  masses  as  distinct  from  slaveholders  and 
slaves.  What  are  their  leaders  doing  for  them? 
How  is  the  Society  of  which  they  are  members 
fulfilling  its  responsibility  toward  them?  The 
record  is  universally  admitted  to  be  bad,  in  fact, 
it  is  the  worst  count  in  the  indictment  against 
the  Southern  Oligarchy,  worse  than  the  count 
against  them  on  the  subject  of  black  slavery, 
though  this  must  be  regarded  as  the  first  cause 
of  the  evil.  They  allowed,  and  it  would  seem, 
hastened  the  relapse  of  their  own  white  Anglo- 
Saxon  stock  to  barbarism  in  many  places ;  nay, 
their  own  blood  was  permitted  often  to  drop 
back  into  "  ignorance,  poverty  and  crime."  For 
instance,  "  the  descendants  of  the  former  pro 
prietors  of  the  land,"  who  were  to  be  found 
"in  extensive  communities  on  the  banks  of  the 
Congaree  in  South  Carolina,"  were  declared  by 
a  traveled  Southerner  to  be  more  debased,  more 
indolent  and  shiftless,  more  hopeless,  "  than  the 


THE  SOUTH  —  THE  NON- SLAVEHOLDERS.     307 

most  degraded  peons  of  Mexico."  The  sand- 
hillersof  the  same  State  have  acquired  a  national 
reputation  for  having  furnished  visible  proof 
that  pure  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  the  most  energetic 
and  enterprising  in  the  world,  can  sink  back  in  a 
favorable  environment  after  a  few  generations  to 
the  level  of  the  Digger  Indian.  It  ought  to  be 
added  that  some  of  the  best  men  of  South 
Carolina,  though  belonging  to  the  Oligarchy, 
recognized  and  sought  to  remedy  this  condition 
of  the  wretched  non-slaveholding  Class.  Gov 
ernors  repeatedly  besought  the  State  Legislature 
to  do  something.  In  December,  1855,  Governor 
Adams  urges  almost  frantically :  "  Make  at  least 
this  effort"  —  the  appointment  of  a  State 
Superintendent  of  Education  —  and  if  "  the  poor 
of  the  land  are  hopelessly  doomed  to  ignorance, 
poverty  and  crime" — which  he  seemed  to 
think — "you  will  at  least  feel  conscious  of  having 
done  your  duty,  and  the  public  anxiety  on  the 
subject  will  be  quieted."  (Citations  from  Olm- 
sted,  Seaboard  Slave  States,  pp.  505-6.) 

Thus  it  would  appear  that  South  Carolina,  the 
most  oligarchic  of  the  Oligarchy,  was  getting 
troubled  over  this  dense  mass  of  "ignorance, 
poverty  and  crime  "  ever  growing  denser  and 
larger  within  her  borders.  There  was  "  public 
anxiety  on  the  subject,"  and  well  might  there 
be.  This  recalls  a  declaration  of  Broderick  in 
1858  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States:  "  Two 


308  THE  TEN  TSARS'  WAR.  -  PART  II. 

hundred  thousand  men  with  white  skins  in  South 
Carolina  are  now  degraded  and  despised  by 
thirty  thousand  aristocratic  slaveholders." 
What  can  be  the  ground  for  such  a  con 
dition?  And  why  should  Governor  Adams,  in 
spite  of  his  urgent  recommendation,  reveal  an 
undercurrent  of  despair,  feeling  that  "  no  im 
provement  can  be  made  on  the  present  system?" 
The  truth  is  that  the  Oligarchy  could  not  permit 
these  ignorant  masses  to  be  educated  without 
endangering  its  supremacy  in  its  very  home,  in 
its  most  devoted  State.  A  mighty  blow  must 
smite  this  Oligarchy  from  the  outside  and  shiver 
it  to  fragments,  ere  that  poor  white  non-slave- 
holding  majority  can  be  set  free  of  its  bonds  of 
'  *  ignorance ,  poverty  and  crime ' '  — an  enfranchise 
ment,  we  repeat,  far  greater  and  more  important 
than  even  that  of  the  black  slave,  great  as  that  is. 
Perhaps  South  Carolina  was  the  worst  offender 
against  its  own  Anglo-Saxon  majority,  but  the 
other  Slave-States  through  the  same  oligarchic 
necessity  could  not  help  sharing  in  the  wrong. 
Hence  that  three-headed  devil,  ««  ignorance, 
poverty  and  crime,"  reared  its  monstrous  shape 
every  where  in  the  South  among  the  non-slave- 
holding  class.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
same  fiend  could  be  found  at  places  in  the  North. 
But  no  close  Oligarchy  seeking  to  dominate  with 
its  minority,  fed  it  there,  fattening  it  to  its 
colossal  Southern  magnitude.  The  motive  of 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  NON-  SLAVEHOLDEES.     309 

Power  can  also  be  seen  lurking  in  this  diabolic 
business.  The  minority  of  the  South  shows  its 
worst  phase  at  this  point,  its  deepest  sin  against 
its  own  citizen  majority.  It  might  and  did 
govern  the  Nation,  but  it  could  not  force  upon 
the  free  North  the  portentous  monster  which 
grew  to  such  fearful  proportions,  if  not  under 
its  care,  at  least  under  its  neglect,  in  South 
Carolina. 

And  now  we  make  haste  to  add  that  by  no 
means  all,  not  one  half  of  the  four  millions  and 
more  of  non-slaveholders  of  the  South  were  in 
the  claws  of  this  devil  of  the  triple  body  (tri- 
gemini  corporis).  There  were  many  religious 
communities  scattered  through  the  land  of  sun 
shine  —  Quakers,  Memnonites  and  other  organ 
izations —  refusing  to  hold  slaves  through  con 
science,  and  doing  their  own  work  or  hiring  it 
done  by  free  laborers.  There  were  also  many 
individual  farmers,  prosperous,  strong-boned  and 
strong-brained,  who  declined  for  one  reason  or 
other  to  tamper  with  the  dragon.  Then  came 
the  considerable  army  of  mechanics,  artisans, 
merchants,  clerks,  teachers,  skilled  workers  in 
the  various  enterprises  of  the  land,  who  of  course 
were  neither  slaves  nor  owned  slaves. 

Another  fact  should  be  noted  in  this  connec 
tion:  the  continuous  stream  of  migration  of 
Southern  non-slaveholders  to  the  North.  This 
began  early  from  Virginia  into  the  Northwestern 


310  THE  TEN  YEARS'  WAE.—PAETIL 

Territory,  and  in  particular,  filled  up  the  South 
ern  halves  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  where 
they  and  their  descendants  have  been  living  for  a 
century  and  more,  and  sending  forth  new  colon 
ists  westward.  These  last  were  chiefly  the 
people  who  first  poured  over  the  border  into 
Kansas,  constituting  that  early  majority  of  anti- 
negro  Free-State  protagonists  whose  exploits 
have  been  already  celebrated. 

Why  did  these  Virginians  migrate  to  the 
North?  Many  also  came  from  Kentucky,  the 
daughter  of  Virginia,  as  well  as  from  North 
Carolina  and  other  Slave  States.  Some  dis 
satisfaction  with  slavery  and  its  Social  Sys 
tem  for  the  most  part  lay  at  the  root  of 
this  movement  toward  the  new  Free-States. 
Possibly  some  instinct  of  the  day  of  reckon 
ing  wrought  dumbly  in  them,  as  it  troubled 
the  foreboding  soul  of  Jefferson  when  he 
"trembled"  for  slaveholders,  as  he  thought 
of  the  "justice  of  God."  The  stream  kept 
flowing  till  the  War,  and  there  is  little  doubt 
that  the  Southern  States  sent  as  many  settlers 
into  the  Northwest  as  did  the  Eastern  States  of 
the  North. 

This  migration  likewise  had  its  effect  upon 
the  South.  It  took,  by  a  kind  of  Natural  Selec 
tion,  the  most  aspiring  and  progressive  part  of 
the  non-slaveholders,  and  to  a  certain  extent,  of 
the  small  slaveholders.  The  father  of  a  large 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  NON-  SLAVEHOLDERS.     311 

family  possessed  of  limited  means  but  ambitious 
for  his  children,  would  bundle  them  together 
into  a  covered  wagon  on  some  bright  day 
and  start  for  the  free  West  where  he,  though 
uneducated  himself,  had  heard  that  Public 
Schools  existed  in  every  locality  for  even  the 
poorest,  and  that  the  opportunities  of  life  were 
the  same  for  all,  high  and  humble.  Nobody 
needed  there  to  be  born  in  the  Oligarchy  to  have 
a  chance.  Thus  the  South  lost  the  most  enter 
prising  portion  of  its  less  wealthy  population; 
the  "poor  white  trash"  remained,  not  having 
energy  and  hope  enough  to  try  to  better  their 
condition.  Moreover  .this  migration  benefitted 
the  Oligarchy  in  one  way ;  it  drained  off  the  ris 
ing  discontent,  which  was  producing  some  anxiety, 
by  taking  away  from  the  non-slaveholders  their 
most  capable  men,  their  born  leaders,  as  well  as 
a  large  per-cent  of  their  numbers. 

Still  this  discontent  did  not  die  out  but  showed 
itself  in  various  ways.  The  people  who  dwelt  in 
the  mountains  of  the  Apalachian  range  which 
runs  from  Maryland  and  Virginia  through 
two  lines  of  Slave-States  to  Georgia  and 
Alabama,  were  made  up  of  non-slaveholders 
mainly  and  of  some  small  slaveholders.  The 
Oligarchy  did  not  really  exist  in  these  mountain 
ous  regions,  as  slave  labor  did  not  pay.  Hence 
these  people  were  left  without  local  Oligarchic 
leaders,  who  lived  on  the  rich  alluvial  soil  of  the 


312  THE  TEN  YEABS'    WAB.—  PART.  II. 

large  valleys.  Still  these  leaders  controlled  the 
State  and  its  Legislature.  With  this  power  they 
passed  laws  which  lightened  the  burden  of  taxa 
tion  on  their  slave-property.  The  result  was  a 
standing  feud  between  them  and  the  mountaineers 
who  sided  against  them  and  with  the  Union  when 
the  War  broke  out.  Virginia  was  rent  in  twain 
by  these  people  when  the  State  seceded. 

The  poor  whites  had  a  strong  prejudice  against 
the  negro  and  to  this  the  Oligarchs  appealed, 
saying  that  the  North  proposed  negro  equality. 
There  was  a  true  instinct  in  the  horror  of  the 
poor  white  in  this  matter;  he  felt  that  his  real 
danger  was  a  relapse  to  a  backward  race,  and  it 
was;  he  knew  himself  sinking  in  the  scale  of 
civilization,  and  saw  his  future  possible  self  in 
the  negro.  He  could  not  read,  he  had  no  litera 
ture,  he  believed  what  the  leader,  the  Oligarch, 
told  him  in  speeches. 

The  peculiar  mental  condition  of  the  non- 
slaveholding  whites  in  the  South  still  remains 
something  of  psychological  puzzle.  They  were 
of  the  purest  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  yet  they  seem 
to  have  largely  lost  the  will-power  supposed  to 
be  native  to  their  stock.  The  ever-ready  spring- 
to  take  the  initiative,  so  characteristic  of  the 
American,  had  gone  out  of  them;  the  impulse 
to  self-government  which  so  dominated  their 
English  ancestry,  had  lapsed  into  a  kind  of 
apathy  or  helplessness  against  the  ruling  minority. 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  NON-SLAVEHOLDERS.     313 

For  they  were  overwhelmingly  in  the  majority, 
but  they  never  would  or  could  organize  them 
selves  as  Class,  though  their  interests  cried  out 
for  it  in  every  State  of  the  South.  Aspiration, 
quenched  at  home  or  migrating  to  the  North,  no 
longer  drove  them  to  betterment,  and  so  they 
sank  the  other  way  into  deterioration.  The 
deepest  need  of  liberation  in  the  South  lay  in 
the  sphere  of  the  poor  white  man,  whose  cause 
remained  quite  unvoiced,  seemingly  swallowed 
up  in  the  mighty  hubbub  over  the  African. 

Still  the  non-slaveholding  Class  got  at  last  a 
voice  in  Hinton  Rowan  Helper,  of  North  Caro 
lina,  whose  book  called  The  Impending  Crisis  in 
the  years  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Great 
War  produced  no  small  stir.  The  author  regards 
himself  as  the  mouth  piece  of  his  Class,  yea,  as 
its  prophet,  for  the  book  is  full  of  impassioned 
prophecy  of  the  slaveholder's  coming  doom, 
and  the  title  itself  has  a  prophetic  suggestion. 
Helper  also  employs  argument  which  he  puts 
strongly,  buttressing  it  with  a  mass  of  statistics, 
as  well  as  with  his  own  personal  experiences. 
The  feeling  of  the  present  time  condemns  many 
expressions  in  the  book,  and  perhaps  its  whole 
spirit  is  too  denunciatory,  vengeful,  and  savagely 
rhetorical ;  still  it  doubtless  gave  utterance  to  a 
suppressed  strain  of  retaliation  felt  in  many  a 
non-slaveholding  breast,  and  as  such  has  its  sig 
nificance  for  the  future.  No  book  ever  written 


814  THE  TEN  YEAEV   WAR.  —  PART  77. 

by  a  Northern  abolitionist,  no  speech  ever 
spoken  by  Sumner  or  Seward,  ever  produced  half 
the  wrath,  mingled  seemingly  with  some  anxiety, 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Oligarchy.  It  was  regarded 
as  a  fire  in  the  rear,  as  an  act  of  treason  to  the 
South,  and  in  their  sense  it  was.  For  if  that 
vast  non-slaveholding  majority  should  ever  break 
loose  and  start  out  for  itself,  what  would  become 
of  the  slaveholding  minority  and  specially  of  its 
Oligarchy?  No  wonder  that  the  Southern  lead 
ers  denounced  the  book  and  placed  it  upon  the 
forbidden  index,  feeling  in  it  such  a  dire  prophecy 
of  the  impending  cataclysm.  Still  there  was 
little  danger  for  them  from  this  Class,  since  the 
poor  whites  were  not  readers,  most  of  them  could 
not  even  read  the  printed  appeal,  which  was, 
however,  extensively  circulated  at  the  North  and 
there  produced  its  effect.  The  voice  of  Helper, 
accordingly,  never  reached  its  audience  of  non- 
slaveholders,  who  were  to  attain  their  liberation 
in  a  very  different  way. 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVES.  315 


Slaves, 

The  third  great  Class  of  the  South  embraced 
the  African  slaves,  a  vast  voiceless  mass  which 
toiled  for  the  Oligarchs  and  constituted  the  basis 
of  their  social  system.  The  most  obvious  as 
well  as  deepest  natural  distinction  among  men, 
the  distinction  of  race,  split  the  division  of  the 
two  Classes,  master  and  slave,  to  the  bottom, 
making  it  always  physically  present  and  visible, 
as  well  as  spiritually  manifest.  In  antiquity  the 
Greek  slave  of  the  Roman  master  might  be  the 
philosopher,  doctor,  artist,  and  was  often  the 
superior  in  mind,  in  form,  and  in  character. 
Hence  in  the  South  the  doctrine  of  the  inferior 
race  as  the  ground  of  slavery  was  the  favorite 
argument,  and  distinguished  this,  the  modern, 
from  the  ancient  and  medieval  forms  of  servi 
tude. 

Thus  the  least  freedom-asserting  race  is  sub 
jected  by  and  to  the  most  freedom-asserting 
race.  The  enslaved  blacks  dimly  knew  that 
their  liberty  was  at  stake  in  the  War,  yet  they 
never  rose  in  their  own  cause.  Really  they  had 
no  power  of  organization ;  they  were  still  gre 
garious,  rather  than  associative.  Since  the  war 
they  have  had  spells  of  migration,  which  seemed 
to  have  little  or  no  rational  purpose,  but  to  be 


316  THE  TEN  YEARS*   WAR.  —  PART  IT. 

the  stirrings  of  some  original  instinct,  like  the 
movements  of  wild  animals.  Slavery  stopped 
such  wanderings  and  trained  the  African,  to 
steady  labor  —  no  small  or  unimportant  task  by 
the  way.  We  cannot  help  thinking  that  those 
old  Egyptian  Kings  disciplined  the  primitive 
man,  the  first  dweller  in  the  Nile  Valley,  out  of 
indolence  and  savagery,  by  compelling  him  to 
build  the  Pyramids.  Early  Africa  had  the  same 
problems  which  modern  Africa  is  still  working  at. 
Prevalent  in  the  South  was  the  fear  of  servile 
insurrection.  Every  family  in  large  negro  dis 
tricts,  the  mistress  of  a  household  especially, 
was  haunted  by  this  secret  terror,  which,  how 
ever,  was  seldom  uttered  except  in  an  under- 
breath.  This  was  indeed  the  damnation  of  the 
whole  system.  There  was  on  great  plantations 
a  regular  patrolling  of  the  slave  quarters  by 
night.  Towns  and  cities  were  of  ten  under  a  kind 

o 

of  military  surveillance.  Charleston  particularly 
was  always  sentineled  by  a  strict  guard,  as  many 
observers  have  reported.  An  English  visitor 
compared  the  situation  there  to  Sparta  never 
ceasing  to  fear  an  outbreak  of  its  Helots,  which 
indeed  often  came.  But  the  outbreak  of  the 
African  slaves  in  the  South  never  really  came, 
could  not  come  seriously  without  an  organizing 
power  which  they  did  not  possess.  Nat  Turner's 
so-called  insurrection  inflicted  some  outrages,  but 
never  had  any  backbone.  The  truth  is,  the 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVES.  817 

African  is  by  nature  a  docile,  submissive,  clinging, 
parasitic  race  whose  self  is  not  yet  fully  devel 
oped  to  self-dependence. 

How,  then,  could  the  Southerner,  on  the  whole 
an  excellent  and  usually  sympathetic  judge  of 
negro  character,  make  such  a  mistake,  or  at  least 
have  such  a  fear  even  in  spite  of  himself?  The  fact 
rests  upon  a  psychological  element  common  to 
all  men :  they  see  in  others  what  they  themselves 
are  and  ascribe  their  own  feelings  and  actions  to 
people  in  the  same  situation.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
master  knew  that  he  would  rise  and  fight  in  a 
minute  if  anybody  should  attempt  to  enslave  him. 
He  knew  that  his  white  neighbor  would  meet 
him  with  pistol  and  bowie-knife  for  one-tenth  of 
the  humiliation  to  which  he  subjected  his  negro. 
His  own  liberty-loving  spirit  avenged  itself  by 
inflicting  upon  him  a  secret  terror  for  its  violation. 
His  own  strong  self-assertion  was  what  made 
him  anxious  when  he  destroyed  self-assertion  in 
another.  He  could  not  help  unconsciously  judging 
the  negro  by  himself,  and  putting  himself  in  his 
place.  What  then  would  happen?  Insurrec 
tion,  revenge,  bloodshed;  his  imagination,  stimu 
lated  by  the  law  of  his  own  action,  would  call  up 
the  scene,  which  many  a  Southern  orator  elabo 
rated  with  gory  fullness,  well  knowing  that  he 
stirred  a  deep  response  in  the  souls  of  his 
hearers.  Only  he  would  speak  the  fact,  but 
probably  he  did  not  think  out  the  ground  of 


318  THE  TEN  TEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

this  lurking  terror,  itself  largely  groundless. 
That  is,  its  ground  was  internal  lying  in  the 
slave  holder,  not  external  lying  in  the  slave,  as 
time  showed  in  the  most  decisive  manner.  It 
was  indeed  the  ever  present  Nemesis  of  freedom 
punishing  the  free  man  for  violating  what  was 
deepest  and  strongest  in  himself.  The  return 
of  the  deed  upon  the  doer  through  himself  we 
have  to  deem  it,  not  through  the  hand  of  his 
victim ;  a  form  of  retaliation  it  is  which  the  soul 
of  the  master  inflicts  upon  itself  in  requital  for 
its  own  wrongs  done  upon  the  unavenging  slave. 
Here  is  also  the  grand  act  of  liberation  which 
the  War  brought  to  the  larger  slaveholder  spe 
cially,  who  was  thereby  freed  from  the  inner, 
secretly  consuming  Fury  of  his  social  life.  For 
the  evidence  shows  that  slavery  begat  a  Gorgon 
terror-inspiring  in  its  participators,  even  when 
there  was  little  or  no  real  cause  for  such  terror. 
The  same  fact  was  observed  in  the  slaveholding 
countries  of  antiquity,  Greece  and  Rome,  which, 
however,  had  far  more  reason  for  their  anxiety, 
as  they  enslaved  men  of  their  own  color  and 
race,  yea  of  their  own  nationality.  Thus  the 
race-training  and  the  race-feeling  were  then 
common  to  both  slave  and  master,  and  exerted 
themselves  mightily  to  obliterate  the  distinction. 
The  census  of  1850  states  the  number  of  slaves 
exclusive  of  free  blacks,  to  be  3,177,000;  of 
these  more  than  half,  1,800,000  were  employed 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVES.  319 

(according  to  De  Bow)  in  raising  cotton.  In 
this  fact  we  again  note  the  centralization  of 
slave  industry,  in  contrast  with  the  free  industry 
of  the  North.  Cotton  furnished  more  than  half 
the  value  of  the  total  exports  of  the  country 
(76+millions  of  dollars  out  of  136+millions). 
Hence  rose  the  cry  that  cotton  was  king,  and  the 
South  was  led  to  believe  that  the  North,  and 
England,  and  even  Europe  could  not  exist  with 
out  her  staple.  Thereby  too  the  feeling  of 
domination,  already  sufficiently  developed,  was 
enormously  inflated,  and  made  the  Cotton  States 
so  imperious  not  only  over  the  North,  but  over 
Virginia  and  the  more  Northern  Slave-States. 
Indeed  they  imagined  they  held  the  key  to  the 
rule  of  the  world.  Virginia  was  peculiarly 
threatened;  she  had  become  slave-breeder  for 
the  cotton  fields,  which  always  required  a  new 
supply  of  negroes.  Already  in  1832  it  was  esti 
mated  that  Virginia  sent  annually  6,000  negroes 
to  the  lower  South.  This  most  degrading  crop 
of  human  bone  and  muscle  had  become  one  of 
her  chief  sources  of  wealth ;  we  shall  see  the 
extreme  South  threatening  to  cut  it  off  if  Vir 
ginia  proved  refractory.  From  the  landing  of 
the  first  negro  slaves  in  1619  on  the  shores  of 
the  James,  Virginia  seems  to  have  remained  the 
chief  center  of  black  expansion,  though  also  at 
the  same  time  the  center  of  early  opposition  to 
slavery. 


320          THE  TEN  YE  Alt  &   WAlt.  —  2'ART  IT. 

It  is  generally  agreed  at  present  that  slave- 
labor  is  the  most  expensive  of  all  kinds  of  labor. 
Human  force  as  mechanical  merely  is  weak  and 
wasteful;  man  as  a  machine  is  the  slave,  man  as 
the  machine-controller  is  the  free  man.  Slavery 
is  thus  an  economic  evil,  and  also  a  moral  evil, 
and  what  is  deeper  still,  an  institutional  evil. 
The  self  which  owns  itself  is  the  sole  atomic 
constituent  which  can  make  a  free  State.  A 
self  which  is  owned  by  another  self  introduces 
at  once  a  jarring  contradiction  into  the  institu 
tional  world,  which  is  to  secure  the  free  will 
and  not  slavery.  It  was  said  by  an  eminent 
Southerner  that  Capital  must  own  its  Labor; 
but  the  age  says  that  Labor  must  own  itself  and 
then  Capital.  A  free  man  must  go  into  every 
thing  made  in  this  country,  on  this  continent, 
and  finally  on  this  globe.  The  self -owning  self 
must  indeed  labor  and  just  through  its  labor 
must  win  its  economic  freedom.  Then  it  must 
also  be  self-governing  and  win  its  institutional 
freedom.  Such  a  person  will  raise  corn  and 
potatoes,  and  also  cotton,  but  at  the  same  time 
will  raise  another  crop,  that  of  free  Institutions. 
So  the  great  problem  is  to  transform  the  Union 
into  an  Institution  productive  of  Free-States, 
which  transformation  may  be  already  seen  reach 
ing  out  beyond  the  Territories  into  the  Slave- 
States  themselves.  Shall  the  toiler  not  be  a  man 
but  a  piece  of  property  belonging  to  another? 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVES.  321 

Shall  he  earn  his  bread  by  his  own  sweat,  or 
make  another  sweat  for  him?  In  the  long  run, 
however,  it  has  been  found  that  the  man  who 
makes  others  sweat  for  him,  is  made  to  sweat 
himself  even  more  than  they,  and  eats  not  the 
best,  but  the  costliest  bread  produced  by  human 
labor. 

There  is  even  in  slavery  a  process  toward  free 
dom  for  the  slave,  who  in  a  manner  renders  his 
master  unfree,  dependent,  determined  from  the 
outside.  It  is  the  slave  who  through  his  enforced 
labor  makes  his  master  a  member  of  the  Eco 
nomic  Order,  giving  him  his  wealth  and  to  a 
degree  his  social  position.  Thus  the  master  is 
through  the  slave,  he  cannot  remain  master  and 
dispense  with  the  slave,  who,  however,  can  dis 
pense  with  his  master  when  he  has  learned  to 
labor,  and  thus  becomes  internally  his  own 
master.  Slavery  has  an  intrinsic  tendency  to  do 
away  with  itself.  The  master  is  but  the  inter 
mediate  link  which  becomes  unnecessary  when 
the  slave  does  his  work  through  himself. 
Such  was  the  discipline  of  slavery  for  the  black 
man;  it  gave  him  slowly  the  power  through 
industry  to  become  a  member  of  the  Social 
Whole,  which  receives  his  labor  instead  of  his 
master,  and  pays  him  his  reward.  This  is 
economic  freedom  which  the  Southern  negro  has 
not  yet  fully  attained,  but  is  attaining.  Political 
freedom  cannot  take  its  place,  cannot  even  be 

21 


322  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR  —  PART II. 

real  without  economic  freedom,  which  the  black 
man  must  acquire  by  tilling  the  soil  and  taking 
hold  of  the  trades  and  the  industries. 

Hitherto  slavery  must  be  regarded  as  a  condi 
tion  through  which  human  Development  passes, 
as  a  stage  in  the  unfolding  of  the  World's  His 
tory.  It  is  significant  to  see  how  ready  were  the 
early  European  colonists  in  America  to  enslave 
the  two  backward  races,  the  African  and  the 
Indian.  Cupidity  was  undoubtedly  a  motive  and 
a  strong  one;  still  another  element  entered,  that 
of  making  the  idle  savage  work  and  thus  of 
causing  him  to  become  an  integral  member  of 
the  social  organism.  Our  ancestors  knew  no 
other  method  of  bringing  the  natural  man  out  of 
indolence  and  barbarism  than  by  enslaving  him, 
by  taking  away  that  will  of  his  which,  if  left  to 
itself,  would  not  exert  itself  in  labor.  The  savage 
indeed  would  endure  fatigue  and  hunger,  he  was 
capable  of  strenuous  effort  in  war  and  the  chase; 
but  he  knew  not  the  Social  Whole  as  the  object 
of  effort,  till  he  was  trained  by  Civilization, 
which  usually  enslaved  him,  chaining  him  liter 
ally  to  his  task.  At  the  same  time  such  servitude 
was  necessarily  self-undoing,  since  its  end  was 
attained  when  the  slave  had  learned  to  work  and 
to  produce  his  contribution  to  society  through 
his  own  will  and  not  through  that  of  the  master. 
This  period  is  indicated  in  the  History  of  Nations 
by  the  servile  revolt,  of  which  Rome  has  fur- 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVES.  323 

nished  so  many  striking  examples.  But  there 
was  no  servile  revolt  of  the  blacks  in  the  South 
during  the  War  —  a  fact  of  great  significance, 
indicating  among  other  things  that  they  were  not 
yet  socially  ready.  It  was  really  the  white  man 
who  was  ready  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  and 
called  for  it  in  his  own  interest.  And  we  have 
to  add,  the  World-Spirit  was  ready  for  it,  ready 
to  train  the  backward  races  through  some  other 
and  higher  instrumentality  than  servitude.  For 
they  have  still  to  be  disciplined  into  the  civilized 
order  of  the  world,  but  the  discipline  must  take 
place  through  education  directly,  as  the  explicit 
conscious  end.  Slavery  was  educative  indirectly, 
though  the  master  had  no  such  purpose.  But  it 
always  brought  in  its  train  the  terrible  curse  of 
war  and  political  dissolution.  Civilization  is 
now  strong  enough  and  humane  enough  to  edu 
cate  the  savage  without  enslaving  him.  The 
American  Ten  Years'  War  was  the  end  of  the 
slavery's  discipline  of  the  Race,  and  the  begin 
ning  of  a  new  epoch  in  the  school  of  Mankind. 
Though  a  war  too,  it  was  waged  against  the 
sources  of  war,  a  war  it  was  to  end  at  least  one 
great  cause  of  war. 

As  we  have  often  invoked  the  Genius  of  Civ 
ilization  or  the  World-Spirit  in  other  matters, 
we  may  here  ask  ourselves :  What  is  it  trying  to 
do  with  the  blacks?  Evidently  slavery  has  been 
for  them  a  great  schooling ;  they  are  made  to 


324  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

work  from  the  outside  that  they  may  learn  to 
work  from  the  inside,  and  thus  become  partici 
pators  in  the  socio-economic  institution,  whereby 
they  get  the  sense  of  property  and  its  ownership. 
As  slaves  they  cannot  strictly  own  anything,  not 
owning  themselves,  their  Wills,  which  belong  to 
the  master.  Yet  even  here  the  process  shows 
itself.  For  after  all,  the  master  presupposes  in 
the  slave  a  Will  self-determining  within  its 
sphere,  and  hence  endows  him  with  responsi 
bility,  even  if  limited.  The  master  assigns  to 
his  slave  a  task  and  perchance  punishes  him  if  it 
is  not  done.  Both  the  task  and  the  punishment 
tacitly  acknowledge  a  realm  of  freedom,  which 
cattle  and  horses,  not  to  speak  of  lifeless  prop 
erty,  do  not  possess.  Thus  the  master  is  secretly 
training  his  slaves  to  freedom  through  holding 
them  accountable,  and  even  through  punishment. 
Here  again  we  note  that  slavery  is  internally  self- 
undoing,  even  if  externally  this  process  be  hin 
dered  and  delayed  in  its  result.  The  slave,  or 
let  us  think  him  specially  the  enslaved  Will,  be 
ing  owned  as  property  by  another  Will  and  laden 
with  duties,  however  humble,  is  slowly  getting  a 
Will  of  his  own,  which  in  turn  can  own,  and  thus 
not  simply  be  but  have  property.  Then  he  has 
joined  the  Social  Whole  whose  end  is  the  eco 
nomic  freedom  of  all  its  members.  As  before  said, 
this  is  the  true  condition  and  antecedent  of  any 
real  political  freedom,  as  the  history  of  the  en- 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVES.  325 

franchisee!  negro  in  the  South  has    abundantly 
shown  since  the  War. 

So  we  may  see  that  the  World-Spirit  through 
the  discipline  of  slavery  has  taken  in  hand  the 
Black  Eace  which  it  is  training  up  into  institu 
tional  freedom.  Moreover  it  is  the  American 
negro  who  is  to  be  brought  into  participation 
with  the  World's  Civilization  through  the  insti 
tutions  of  his  birth-land.  He  is  not  to  be  sent 
back  to  Africa,  there  to  lose  what  he  has  here 
won,  in  the  vast  savagery  of  a  Continent,  or  even 
by  becoming  European.  Colonization  in  its 
present  form  would  make  undone  what  the 
World-Spirit  has  done  with  a  purpose.  This  was 
the  purpose  which  the  Oligarchy  unconsciously 
subserved  during  its  day  of  power;  and  still 
more  completely  by  its  ever-memorable  fight 
apparently  for  African  slavery,  but  really  for 
African  enfranchisement.  Such,  then,  is  the 
problem  before  us:  This  most  un-Aryan,  and 
we  can  also  say,  this  least  Caucasian  of  all  the 
races — white,  yellow,  red,  black — this  black 
race  is  put  under  training  to  the  American 
Aryan  or  Caucasian,  who  thus  has  to  reach 
quite  back  to  the  beginning  of  his  human  kind  in 
the  early  man,  releasing  the  latter  from  an  outer 
and  inner  bondage,  and  endowing  him  with  an 
ideal  of  freedom  through  a  long,  painful  disci 
pline,  productive  of  many  woes  to  both  sides. 
But  the  task  has  to  be  done,  being  imposed  by 


326  THE  TEN  YEAR&   WAR. —TART II. 

the  World-Spirit,  which  knows  how  to  bring 
about  fulfillment  of  its  behest  even  through 
the  most  bitter  resistance  and  antipathy,  whose 
method  indeed  is  often  to  make  a  people  do  the 
very  opposite  of  what  it  thinks  it  is  doing. 

And  the  thought  may  be  here  added  that  the 
higher  development  of  national  consciousness  is 
to  become  fully  aware  of  this  World-Spirit,  and 
harmonious  with  its  purpose.  War  has  been 
hitherto  its  means  because  of  the  ignorant  and 
refractory  nations  with  which  it  has  dealt,  and 
which  have  had  to  be  disciplined  into  knowledge 
of  its  plan  as  well  as  into  obedience  to  its  com 
mand.  Though  in  the  History  of  the  past,  it  has 
been  largely  unconscious  in  the  people  which  has 
been  its  chosen  bearer,  its  destiny  is  to  become 
a  conscious  principle  of  national  action,  and  per 
chance  to  have  its  place  or  representative  in 
Government  itself.  Then  the  outer  spectacle 
of  the  rise,  bloom,  and  fall  of  Nations  which 
has  been  heretofore  the  course  of  the  World's 
History  will  cease,  being  taken  up  into  the  inner 
development  of  the  single  Nation  and  made  the 
process  of  its  perpetuity  --  its  decline  being 
always  counteracted  by  its  new  rise.  And  the 
World-Spirit  is  no  longer  to  appear  as  an  ex 
ternal  Power  over  the  Nations,  but  their  internal 
Power,  organized  into  their  very  Constitution. 
Such  is  the  end  toward  which  History  is  moving, 
seeking  to  get  its  deepest  process  inside  the 


THE  SOUTH,  —  THE  SLAVES.  327 

Nation  wholly,  which  process  has  been  so  largely 
outside  of  it  hitherto,  and  hence  destructive  of  it 
at  last. 

Racial  freedom  is,  then,  what  the  World-Spirit 
has  enjoined  upon  the  American  Folk-Soul; 
moreover  this  racial  freedom  must  be  elevated 
out  of  mere  caprice  and  barbarism,  and  made 
institutional,  and  that  too  made  institutional  in 
the  American  sense.  The  African  is  to  be 
trained  into  a  political  consciousness  which  is 
State-producing,  yea  productive  of  the  Free- 
State,  even  if  he  has  no  such  consciousness 
developed  at  present.  Such  is  clearly  the  in 
junction  of  the  World-Spirit,  never  before  laid 
upon  any  nation.  The  contest  for  freedom  has 
indeed  been  perennial,  springing  up  at  the  start 
of  History  and  passing  through  many  stages. 
But  here  the  command  is  distinctively  racial 
freedom,  and  that  too  of  the  humblest  race. 
Of  such  freedom,  moreover,  the  Hero  has 
appeared,  an  Aryan  Hero,  the  last  and  seemingly 
the  greatest  of  a  long  line  reaching  back  through 
the  World's  History,  whose  process  may  be  seen 
through  him  to  be  getting  more  and  more  inside 
the  Nation,  thus  freeing  it  of  its  own  destroying 
Furies  within  and  also  without.  An  Aryan  Hero 
we  call  him,  yet  also  the  Hero  of  another  race 
different  from  his  own,  greater  than  Alexander 
or  Caesar,  military  Heroes  limited  to  their  own 
race  and  determining  it  chiefly. 


328  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAE.  —  PART II. 

Thus  the  former  slaves  of  the  South  having 
become  freedmen  and  also  citizens,  have  intro 
duced  a  new  world-historical  problem  whose 
working-out  reaches  far  into  the  future.  For 
the  World's  History  as  hitherto  developed  and 
recorded,  has  been  chiefly  confined  to  one  race, 
we  may  call  it  uniracial.  But  at  present  many 
indications  show  that  the  World's  History  is 
expanding  its  limits  to  include  the  several  races ; 
hence  we  may  call  it  multiracial.  Within 
a  dozen  years  the  yellow  race  has  joined  the 
world-historical  procession  not  merely  of  the 
Nations  but  of  the  Races,  not  being  forced  into 
it  from  the  outside  by  a  stronger  Race,  but  enter 
ing  it  voluntarily  through  unsurpassed  deeds  of 
heroism.  Using  our  nomenclature,  which  we 
hope  our  reader  is  beginning  not  only  to  appre 
hend  but  for  the  nonce  to  accept  and  even  to 
enjoy,  we  may  say  that  the  World-Spirit  took  a 
great  new  step  by  starting  to  be  multiracial 
during  and  after  the  American  Ten  Years'  War. 
The  supreme  political  units  of  European  History 
have  mainly  been  tribes  and  nations  of  the  same 
general  ethnic  character,  of  the  same  Race,  how.- 
ever  different  they  may  otherwise  have  been. 
But  at  present  we  see  the  beginnings  of  a  vast 
change;  the  ultimate  political  units  of  History 
are  getting  to  be  racial,  rising  above  and  includ 
ing  Nations.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the 
Races  are  to  constitute  together  the  supreme 


THE  SOUTH.  —  THE  SLAVES.  329 

process  of  the  World's  History,  and  to  attain  a 
new  institutional  unity  of  total  Mankind,  a  new 
federation  of  some  sort  evolving  out  of  yet  dif 
ferent  from  the  hitherto  existent  governmental 
forms  known  as  State,  Empire,  Republic. 
Nationality  has  been  great,  but  raciality  seems 
destined  to  become  greater. 

So  much  in  regard  to  African  Slavery  as  racial, 
and  its  place  and  part  in  the  world-historical 
movement  of  the  Ages  past  and  present,  with 
tentative  glimpses  of  the  future.  Coming  back 
from  such  a  far-extending  journey  of  outlooks, 
we  must  recall  the  cleft  American  Folk-Soul 
with  its  Northern  and  Southern  halves  ever  grow 
ing  more  disunited  externally,  yet  internally  re 
vealing  the  mightier  looming  task  that  one  side 
must  assimilate  the  other  in  this  deepest  matter 
of  slavery.  The  foregoing  Classism  is  destined 
to  be  smitten  to  fragments,  whereby  the  three 
great  Classes  of  the  South  are  to  be  broken  up, 
their  crystallized  limits  shivered  to  atoms  politi 
cally,  and  a  new  organization  begun.  Each 
Class  is  to  be  in  its  own  peculiar  way  liberated, 
though  burdened  with  new  duties.  The  Oli 
garchy  with  its  minority  rule  in  Nation,  State 
and  Class,  is  in  these  years  challenging  its  fate 
through  developing  to  maturity  the  germ  of 
Secession,  which,  implicit  in  the  Federal  Union 
since  its  formation,  now  becomes  explicit  and 
puts  forth  its  complete  flower. 


CHAPTER  III. --THE    PROCESS    OF    SE 
CESSION. 

The  general  character  of  the  three  years  be 
fore  us  (1858-1861)  has  been  already  designated 
as  that  of  Separation,  Antagonism,  Disunion. 
We  have  just  witnessed  the  development  of  the 
North  and  South  into  two  opposing  social  and 
political  systems,  which  have  become  so  hetero 
geneous  and  mutually  uncongenial  that  they  can 
no  longer  live  together.  One  must  fundament 
ally  transform  the  other  in  the  matter  of  slavery, 
which  is  the  ever-irritating  source  of  difference. 
There  can  be  no  compromise,  no  half-way  stop 
ping-place  :  the  North  must  metamorphose  the 
South,  or  the  South  the  North;  or,  in  the  words 
of  Lincoln,  which  we  have  already  cited  as  the 
key-note  or  leading-motive  of  the  present  period  : 
"This  Government  cannot  permanently  endure 
half-slave  and  half-free.  It  will  become  all  one 
thing  or  all  the  other."  Just  now  the  struggle 
(330) 


THE  PROCESS  OF  SECESSION.      331 

is:  Which  shall  it  be?  Each  side  is  resisting 
the  movement  of  the  other.  The  result  is,  the 
Union  is  visibly  disuniting  itself  into  its  two 
great  constituents,  Northern  and  Southern.  This 
separation  passes  through  several  stages,  which 
we  shall  put  together,  calling  it  the  Process  of 
Secession.  The  positive  act  of  separation  springs 
from  the  Oligarchy,  while  the  counter  action  of 
it  rises  out  of  the  People.  The  culmination  will 
be  when  the  Slave-States,  or  two  tiers  of  them, 
secede  from  the  Union  and  thereby  make  Seces 
sion  a  reality. 

The  fact  has  been  already  noted  that  the  year 
1858  changed  the  whole  political  outlook  of  the 
Southern  Oligarchy.  It  had  lost  the  North  com 
pletely,  which  had  sent  a  hostile  House  of  Rep 
resentatives,  whose  character  will  be  shown  by 
the  election  of  a  Republican  Speaker.  It  had 
failed  to  make  Kansas  a  Slave-State,  thus  admit 
ting  a  preponderance  of  Free-States  even  in 
number,  not  to  speak  of  wealth  and  population. 
But  chiefly  it  had  called  up  in  the  North  a  politi 
cal  Party  whose  cardinal  doctrine  was  that  there 
must  be  no  more  Slave-States  for  all  future 
time.  Thus  the  South  felt  itself  limited, 
hampered  in  its  maintenance  of  Power,  yea, 
dominated  in  its  turn  by  a  section  which  it  had 
always  dominated.  Its  mightiest  thunderbolt, 
launched  by  the  Supreme  Judiciary  of  the  land 
against  this  Party,  had  not  only  missed  its  object, 


332  THE   TEX  YKARS'    WAR.  —  PART II. 

but  turned  out  a  boomerang.  It  cannot  extend 
even  Southward  if  the  Republican  doctrine  of 
prohibiting  slavery  in  the  Territories  already 
acquired  or  hereafter  to  be  acquired,  should  pre 
vail.  Thus  a  limit  is  drawn  on  all  sides  around 
the  South  which  it  passionately  resents.  For 
merly  it  drew  its  own  limits,  as  well  as  those  of 
the  North,  which  has  now  become  so  arrogant  as 
to  think  of  governing  its  governors. 

This  situation  gives  the  clue  to  much  said  and 
done  in  the  South  during  the  present  period. 
There  was  a  passionateness  in  word  and  action 
which  now  seems  extravagant,  and  which  cer 
tainly  did  not  help  its  cause.  But  we  must 
bring  before  us  a  proud  and  imperious  people 
or  rather  Oligarchy,  which,  accustomed  to  rule, 
beholds  suddenly  the  prospect  of  being  ruled  by 
those  whom  it  has  ruled.  Such  a  condition  was 
felt  to  be  an  outrage  unendurable.  It  was  al 
most  as  bad  as  if  the  slaves  should  rise  up  and 
prescribe  the  law  for  Southern  gentlemen.  In 
the  North  nothing  could  be  more  natural  than 
the  rule  of  the  majority;  in  the  South  nothing 
could  be  more  natural  than  the  rule  of  the 
minority,  that  is  of  the  Oligarchic  minority. 
The  business  of  this  minority  had  long  been  to 
rule  majorities  both  in  the  States  where  it  ex 
isted  and  in  the  Nation.  So  the  South  boiled 
over  with  passion  which  started  from  its  domi 
nating  center,  at  the  restrictions  put  upon  it  by 


THE  PROCESS  OF  SECESSION.      333 

the  majority.  Now  the  form  which  this  passion 
chiefly  took  was  the  menace.  The  angry  South 
shook  its  finger  at  the  North  and  threatened  and 
stormed  if  a  Republican  should  be  elected  Presi 
dent.  This  threat  was  universally  the  dissolu 
tion  of  the  Union.  Southerners  would  not  obey 
such  a  President  even  if  constitutionally  chosen. 
They  were  minority  rulers,  and  were  only  assert 
ing  their  principle  in  their  menace  against  the 
majority.  Moreover,  this  threatening  manner 
was  born  of  their  relation  to  their  slaves,  who 
were  cowed  into  obedience  by  an  intimidating 
look  or  word.  Jefferson  has  noted  that  such  a 
manner  was  imitated  already  by  children  from 
the  example  of  the  parents.  It  is  not,  therefore, 
wronging  the  Southern  slaveholder  to  say  that 
the  menace  came  natural  to  him,  springing  both 
from  inheritance  and  education.  In  a  way  he 
could  hardly  help  himself  in  his  environment; 
his  life,  his  character,  his  world  was  a  minority 
dominating  and  hence  more  or  less  intimidating 
the  majority,  in  fact  four  majorities  in  his  case, 
as  we  have  seen. 

So  the  present  period  (1858-61)  was  decidedly 
tinged  with  the  menace,  of  which,  however,  the 
North  was  not  wholly  free.  Passion  begets 
counter  passion,  and  threat  rouses  threat  in  turn. 
Besides,  the  North  had  its  born  gasconaders  and 
threateners.  Still  the  Northern  social  condition 
did  not  engender  the  menace,  at  least  not  the 


334  THE  TEN    YEARS1    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

minority's  menace  of  the  majority.  The  North 
was  not  heard  to  threaten  the  disruption  of  the 
Union,  if  a  President  were  fairly  elected,  or  if 
its  view  were  not  adopted  by  the  majority  of  the 
Nation.  Once  New  England  States  did  indulge 
in  such  threats,  but  this  method  had  long  since 
migrated  to  the  South,  which  some  times  has 
claimed  to  have  learned  it  from  the  Old  North. 
During  the  period  now  under  consideration  we 
may  imagine  the  two  sections  in  various  menac 
ing  attitudes  glowering  at  each  other  across 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  which  still  keeps  them 
apart,  though  each  side  in  its  deepest,  even  if 
unconscious  drift,  is  aligning  itself  for  the  coin 
ing  struggle. 

It  may  be  here  noted  that  each  side  mistook 
the  other.  The  North  regarded  the  menace  of 
the  Southerners  as  mere  bluster  which  they  would 
not  undertake  to  carry  out  by  dissolving  the 
Union.  This  threat  had  been  used  so  often 
before  that  it  was  worn  thread-bare  and  was 
scoffed  at  by  the  North.  The  election  of 
Buchanan  turned  on  its  skillful  employment,  but 
it  could  never  serve  again  any  such  purpose. 
On  the  other  hand  the  South  thought  that  the 

O 

Northerners  would  yield  before  fighting.  Such 
a  view  was  natural.  The  slaveholder  lived  in 
a  yielding  world,  his  slaves  yielded,  and  the  non- 
slaveholders  yielded;  he  could  hardly  help  be 
lieving  that  the  North  would  yield.  Such  was 
the  delusion  which  lay  deep  in  his  consciousness, 


THE  PROCESS  OF  SECESSION.      335 

and  which  went  far  toward  determining  his 
action. 

Already  in  1858,  the  question  of  the  Presi 
dency  loomed  up  portentously  in  the  Southern 
mind.  The  elections  of  that  year  showed  that 
the  Republicans  might  choose  the  chief  magis 
trate  of  the  Nation  in  1860.  Enough  of  the 
States  which  voted  for  Buchanan  in  1856  had 
deserted  the  Democratic  column  to  secure  a 
Presidential  victory  to  its  enemy.  Moreover  the 
Democrats  were  hopelessly  divided  and  their 
disintegration  was  on  the  increase,  while  the  Re 
publicans  were  growing  more  united  and  com 
pact,  particularly  after  Lincoln's  campaign 
against  Douglas.  Thus  the  executive  office  at 
Washington  becomes  the  objective  point  toward 
which  and  round  which  the  movement  of  the 
time  mostly  turns.  We  have  already  seen  the 
Administration  at  Washington  as  the  chief  source 
of  the  Kansas  irritation,  trying  to  make  it  a  Slave- 
State.  Then  the  Oligarchy  wielded  the  power 
of  the  Government,  but  now  the  power  seems  to 
be  passing  over  to  the  hands  of  the  North,  which 
is  striving  to  reach  the  center  of  irritation  so 
productive  of  evil  on  the  border. 

So  Washington  will  remain  an  important  part 
of  the  present  process,  but  rather  as  the  irritated 
than  the  irritating  center.  It  will  be  the  arena 
to  which  the  combatants  come  for  their  prelim 
inary  struggle.  The  Buchanan  Administration, 
always  weak,  has  quite  spent  its  aggressive 


336  THE  TEN  YEARS1    WAR.  -  PART  1L 

strength  on  Kansas,  where  it  has  failed:  It  also 
tried  to  defeat  Douglas  in  Illinois,  in  which  it- 
scored  another  failure.  It  dallied  a  little  with 
the  hope  of  getting  Cuba  for  the  South.  Jeffer 
son  Davis,  in  a  speech  to  his  Mississippi  constit 
uents  spoke  of  new  Territory  to  be  acquired 
beyond  the  Rio  Grande.  But  the  Oligarchy 
was  well  aware  that  another  and  far  deeper  ques 
tion  must  first  be  settled,  just  that  of  Union  or 
Secession  under  the  incoming  dominance  of  the 
North. 

If  the  executive  branch  of  Government,  with 
its  decrepit  head  and  lukewarm  cabinet  had  sunk 
into  insignificance,  the  legislative  branch  was  all 
the  more  active  and  became  the  scene  of  the  first 
Alignment  of  the  two  representative  parties,  as 
well  as  of  their  earliest  onsets.  The  Congress 
of  1858-9  manifests  often  violently  in  word  and 
deed  the  separative  character  of  the  era  before  us. 
But  the  year  1860  has  another  Alignment,  in 
which  the  Nation  takes  part,  that  of  the  Presiden 
tial  election,  peaceful  though  ominous.  After  this 
election  follows  at  once  the  third  Alignment, 
that  of  Secession,  upon  which  question  all  the 
States,  Northern  and  Southern,  have  to  take 
sides  and  toe  the  battle-line. 

These  three  Alignments  will  furnish  the  guid 
ing-thread  of  our  Exposition,  since  they  bring 
out  and  emphasize  the  Process  of  Secession  no 
longer  lying  dormant  but  becoming  a  reality,  no 
longer  a  menace  but  a  deed. 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  FIRST  ALIGNMENT.     337 


first  alignment 

Though  the  relations  between  the  North  and 
South  were  continually  shifting,  the  two  sides 
were  getting  into  a  definite  Alignment  in  the 
Congressional  year  of  1858-9.  Each  section 
was  aware  of  the  approaching  struggle,  and  had 
selected  its  protagonists  in  the  election  of  1858. 
These  were  to  meet  at  the  center,  Washington, 
where  the  preliminary  maneuvering  and  skirmish 
ing  was  to  take  place  in  Congress,  particularly 
in  the  House  of  Kepresentatives.  The  outcome 
will  be  what  we  may  call  the  First  or  Congres 
sional  Alignment  in  the  Process  of  Secession. 

The  waning  domination  of  the  South  or  of  its 
Oligarchy  began  to  show  itself  decisively  during 
the  events  of  this  Congressional  Alignment. 
Kansas  lost,  the  Democratic  party  beaten  in  the 
North,  the  Administration  helpless,  marked  the 
drift  of  the  time,  which  was  accentuated  by  the 
election  of  a  Republican  Speaker  of  the  National 
House  of  Representatives.  The  ill-luck  con 
tinued  in  the  Presidential  election  and  finally  in 
the  War  itself.  At  Washington  the  political 
rent  became  social,  and  threw  its  cloud  over  the 
gayety  of  the  Capital.  The  ladies  divided  on 
the  line  of  North  and  South,  and  the  coming 
change  of  domination  was  reflected  in  the  actions 

22 


THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  ~  PART  If. 

and  even  in  the  faces  of  the  women  of  the  two 
contending  sections. 

This  first  swirl  in  the  Process  of  Secession 
sweeping  from  the  circumference  of  the  land  to 
the  center  at  Washington,  and  there  seething  for 
a  year  or  more  till  the  two  sides  distinctly  and 
permanently  align  themselves  in  Congress,  is 
what  the  reader  is  now  to  reproduce  and  re-enact 
in  his  own  brain.  He  must  not  only  see  an  irri 
tated  South  and  an  irritated  North  but  also  feel 
in  himself  these  mutual  and  conflicting  irritations 
which  are  getting  heated  to  the  point  of  break 
ing  out  into  open  combat  on  the  battle-field. 

1.  The  irritated  South.  The  feeling  of  irrita 
tion  of  the  South  against  the  North  in  1858,  on 
account  of  its  political  reverses  and  the  limits 
put  upon  it  in  a  variety  of  ways,  had  risen  to 
wrath  and  to  a  kind  of  defiance,  which  showed 
itself  in  the  elections  of  that  year.  The  men 
chosen  were  its  Hotspurs,  its  extremists,  who  no 
doubt  represented  the  mood  of  their  electorate, 
which  was  of  course  determined  by  the  Olig 
archy. 

The  general  result  of  this  First  Alignment  may 
be  here  indicated :  The  Oligarchy  makes  up  its 
mind  not  to  take  political  defeat  in  the  Nation  at 
the  coming  Presidential  election.  The  Southern 
minority  has  now  to  conclude  whether  or  not  it 
will  be  ruled  by  the  National  majority,  which  has 
so  decidedly  expressed  itself  in  the  North.  More- 


CHAPTER  tlL  —  THE  FIRST  ALIGNMENT.    389 

over  one  such  submission  in  the  Nation  would 
mean  the  ultimate  submission  of  the  minority  to 
the  majority  as  a  principle,  and  that  signifies  the 
overthrow  of  the  Oligarchy  at  home  in  its  own 
section,  not  afc  once  perhaps,  but  in  the  course  of 
years.  Hence  it  resolves  at  this  time  that  it 
will  not,  and  indeed  cannot  submit  to  a  Republi 
can  President.  Great  is  the  stake ;  if  it  will  not 
take  political  defeat,  it  courts  military  defeat, 
which  will  end  not  only  its  National  rule,  but  all 
its  four  supremacies.  The  Oligarchy,  having 
good  heads,  could  not  have  been  unaware  of  the 
extreme  hazard  of  their  purpose,  but  they  re 
solved  to  take  it,  risking  the  whole  sweep  of 
their  authority  with  the  future  thrown  in. 

Thus  the  Southern  cavaliers  come  up  to  the 
Capital  from  the  outlying  districts,  ready  to 
fling  down  the  gage  of  battle  to  their  Northern 
antagonists  on  the  Congressional  arena,  full  of  a 
haughty  disdain,  somewhat  like  their  medieval 
prototypes.  Jefferson  Davis,  their  leader,  took 
the  palm  of  being  the  most  arrogant  man  in 
Washington,  which  palm,  however,  was  con 
ferred  on  him  by  his  foes,  though  it  seems  not  to 
have  been  challenged  by  his  friends.  But  they 
all  showed  defiance  in  word,  look  and  act,  the 
defiance  of  the  minority  against  the  majority,  as 
they  stepped  up  to  that  battle-line  of  words  on 
the  floor  of  Congress. 

2.   The  irritated  North.     There  was  a  feeling 


340  THE  TEN  YEAE&   WAE.  —  PAR  TIL 

of  irritation  also  in  the  North  against  the  South, 
on  account  of  Kansas,  and  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  and  the  repeated  threats  to  dissolve  the 
Union.  But  the  strongest  power  working  in  the 
Folk-Soul  of  the  North  was  the  conviction  of  the 
wrong  of  slavery.  Then  there  was  the  deep 
protest  against  minority  rule,  particularly  when 
this  minority  not  only  used  means  but  pursued 
objects  reprobated  by  the  great  body  of  the 
Northern  people.  Southern  leadership  in  itself 
was  not  offensive,  but  had  been  rather  congenial 
to  Northerners,  who  would  still  have  followed 
men  like  Washington,  Jefferson  and  Marshall, 
had  they  been  in  existence.  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  greatest  leader  of  the  North,  was  a  born 
Southerner,  and  retained  much  of  his  Southern 
instinct  to  the  last. 

The  menaces  of  the  South  necessarily  brought 
the  North  to  consider  the  question  whether  or 
not  it  would  fight  for  the  Union  in  case  of  the 
election  of  a  Kepublican  President.  It  too  was 
pondering  the  future  and  making  up  its  mind, 
though  doubtless  in  a  very  vague,  fluctuating 
way.  But  the  issue  of  Secession  is  fermenting 
within  and  will  not  catch  it  wholly  unprepared, 
when  the  time  of  action  arrives. 

The  Northern  Congressmen  came  to  Washing 
ton  at  this  session  (1858-9),  in  a  much  less 
heated  condition  than  the  Southern.  The  cause 
of  this  difference  is  manifest :  the  one  side  was 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  FIEST  ALIGNMENT.     341 

the  loser  and  felt  itself  to  be  sinking,  while  the 
other  was  the  winner  and  felt  itself  to  be  rising. 
Thus  the  Northerners,  besides  being  less  impetu 
ous  by  nature,  had  good  reason  for  indulging  in 
an  even-tempered  serenity  or  perchance  quiet 
elation,  which  suggestively  contrasted  with  the 
defiant  and  arrogant  mood  of  the  Southerners, 
who  sallied  into  scene  of  action  already  at  white 
heat.  Later,  however,  the  Northern  temper 
rose  through  continued  irritation,  and  became  the 
aggressor  in  turn,  after  the  South  had  begun  to 
cool  off.  Thus  the  course  of  this  Congressional 
contest  was  curiously  analogous  to  the  course  of 
the  Great  War,  in  which  the  South  was  more 
alert  and  victorious  at  the  start,  till  the  North 
woke  up  to  the  task,  increasing  its  effort  till  the 
successful  end.  Accordingly  we  shall  pass  to 
the  central  spot,  along  with  both  sides  gathering 
there,  to  see  the  preliminary  muster  and  tourna 
ment  of  the  combatants. 

3.  The  Capital.  In  Washington,  then,  the 
two  clashing  sections  come  together  and  show 
their  antagonism,  particularly  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  which  is  fresh  from  the  people. 
Three  days  after  the  execution  of  John  Brown, 
Congress  met  (December  5th,  1859),  in  a  fever 
of  excitement.  The  Southern  members  espe 
cially  were  overflowing  with  wrath  and  retalia 
tion  and  menaces  of  revolution.  John  Brown 
had  really  converted  them  or  many  of  them; 


342  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR. —PART II. 

they  threatened  to  do  for  Slavery  what  he  had 
done  against  Slavery,  threatened  to  do  essentially 
the  same  deed  for  the  doing  of  which  they  had 
hung  him. 

The  Republicans  had  more  members  of  the 
House  than  any  other  party,  but  not  the  major 
ity  of  the  total  membership.  A  Speaker  was  to 
be  chosen,  and  hence  there  had  to  be  some  kind 
of  a  combination  of  parties.  The  South  had 
three  main  grievances — Brown,  Seward,  and 
Helper,  the  last  being  the  author  of  The  Impend 
ing  Crisis.  Sherman,  the  Republican  candidate 
for  Speaker,  had  signed  a  recommendation  of 
Helper's  book  for  a  campaign  document,  with 
out  having  read  it  however.  This  recommenda 
tion  was  made  the  basis  of  a  furious  attack  upon 
him,  since  the  book  was  deemed  very  offensive 
and  indeed  dangerous  to  the  Oligarchy,  as  it  was 
a  passionate  and  often  vengeful  appeal  to  the 
non-slaveholding  whites  of  the  South  to  throw 
off  minority  rule.  Already  on  the  second  day 
of  the  session  there  was  almost  a  personal  en 
counter  between  the  two  sides  in  the  area  of  the 
House,  into  which  there  was  a  common  rush, 
but  the  cooler  heads  of  both  sections  interfered 
and  held  back  their  headstrong  friends.  The 
Southern  men  did  most  of  the  talking,  which 
was  usually  in  a  vein  of  passionate  menace  and 
denunciation.  The  interest  is  to  note  their  an 
athemas  upon  John  Brown  followed  by  declara- 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  FIRST  ALIGNMENT.     343 

tions  of  their  own  John  Brownism.  "  We  will 
never  submit  to  the  inauguration  of  a  Black  Re 
publican  President,"  said  a  representative  from 
Georgia  (Crawford),  with  the  hearty  applause 
of  the  Southern  members.  That  is,  they  would 
not  submit  to  Law  and  Constitution.  Roger  A. 
Pry  or,  member  from  Virginia,  excites  special  in 
terest  by  his  heated  charge  that  Helper's  book 
"  riots  in  rebellion,  treason,  and  insurrection," 
though  Pr;yor  himself  hardly  did  anything  else 
but  indulge  in  the  same  kind  of  rioting.  When 
it  was  found  that  Sherman  could  not  be  elected, 
Pennington,  a  conservative  Republican  from  New 
Jersey,  was  taken  up  and  chosen  February  1st, 
1860,  on  the  forty-fourth  ballot. 

Spontaneously  arises  in  the  mind  a  com 
parison  with  the  election  of  Banks  as  Speaker 
of  the  House  in  the  same  month  of  1856. 
Though  that  contest  lasted  a  little  longer,  and 
though  the  North  and  South  were  then  ar 
rayed  against  each  other,  there  was  good-humor 
throughout,  and  an  optimistic  feeling  that  all 
would  turn  out  right  in  the  end^.  It  is  true  that 
threats  of  dissolving  the  Union  were  then  heard, 
but  not  taken  as  serious ;  a  member  from  Vir 
ginia  who  indulged  in  a  hot  threat  of  the  kind 
was  laughed  down  by  the  House  with  a  good- 
natured  "  Oh,  no,"  in  which  most  of  the 
Southerners  joined.  The  feeling  was  very  dif 
ferent  now  on  their  part,  since  they  showed 


344          THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

themselves  ready  to  echo  in  applause  every  vio 
lent  sentiment  on  their  side  and  even  to  mani 
fest  personal  hostility  on  the  floor  of  the  House. 
Most  of  them  came  armed  to  the  sessions,  which 
fact  becoming  known  caused  a  similar  prepara 
tion  on  the  part  of  the  Northern  men.  Thus 
the  two  sides  stood  in  a  kind  of  battle  array  for 
many  days  with  weapons  ready  though  not  yet 
openly  drawn,  which  we  may  well  call  the  First 
or  Congressional  Alignment,  as  it  was  the  typi 
cal  thing  of  the  time,  the  concentration  of  its 
meaning  in  a  single  act  and  place. 

After  the  election  of  Speaker  the  bow  unbent 
for  a  while;  but  it  was  a  mistake  to  think  that 
the  animosity  was  at  an  end.  Another  outbreak, 
the  worst  of  all,  took  place  in  the  House  on 
April  5th  during  the  speech  of  Owen  Lovejoy  of 
Illinois,  whose  brother  had  been  murdered  some 
years  before  by  a  pro-slavery  mob  at  Alton. 
Lovejoy 's  words  were  violent  and  even  venge 
ful  ;  in  his  speech  he  did  not  disguise  his  personal 
feeling  of  retaliation:  "  You  shed  the  blood  of 
my  brother  twenty  years  ago  on  the  banks  of 
the  Mississippi;  I  am  here  to-day,  thank  God, 
to  vindicate  his  principles,"  and,  it  may  be 
added,  to  pay  you  back.  During  his  speech 
Lovejoy  advanced  from  the  Eepublican  benches 
to  the  side  of  the  Southerners,  and,  in  the  lan 
guage  of  one  of  them,  was  "  shaking  his  fist  in 
our  faces,"  when  the  eruption  came.  Again 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  FIRST  ALIGNMENT.    345 

three  or  four  dozen  angry  men  from  each  side 
made  a  rush  for  the  open  space,  apparently  in 
order  to  get  at  one  another  unimpeded  by  the 
seats  and  desks;  but  only  loud  volleys  of  bil 
lingsgate  were  discharged,  in  which  contest  the 
Southerners  had  the  advantage,  if  we  may  judge 
from  the  following  choice  morsel  of  the  Mis- 
sissippian  Barksdale  :  "  Order  that  black-hearted 
scoundrel  and  nigger-stealing  thief  to  take  his 
seat,  and  this  side  of  the  House  will  do  it"  — 
the  words  were  addressed  to  the  Speaker  com 
manding  order,  and  referred  to  Lovejoy. 

On  the  whole  the  Northerners  wrere  the  ag 
gressors  in  this  affair,  and  unduly  provoked  the 
opposition  which  had  begun  to  show  signs  of 
greater  moderation.  One  result  must  be  noticed : 
the  challenge  to  fight  a  duel  sent  by  Pryor 
of  Virginia  to  Potter  of  Wisconsin.  Potter, 
having  the  choice  of  weapons,  chose  the  bowie- 
knife,  which  Pry  or' s  second  declined  as  a  mode 
of  combat  "vulgar,  barbarous  and  inhuman." 
And  yet  the  bowie-knife  was  generally  regarded 
as  the  South's  peculiar  if  not  emblematic  weapon. 
Potter  suddenly  became  a  hero  to  the  North, 
having  made  in  its  opinion  a  blustering  South 
erner  quail  at  the  gleam  of  his  own  blade.  And 
the  further  inference  was  drawn  that  the  South's 
bark  was  worse  than  its  bite;  in  fact  many 
believed  that  in  the  end  it  would  not  bite  at  all. 
Such  a  view  was  reinforced  by  the  remembrance 


346  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

of  the  parallel  duel  between  Brooks  and  Bur- 
lingame  four  years  before,  which  also  turned  out 
a  fizzle  through  the  back-down  of  the  Southern 
challenger.  On  the  other  hand,  the  South 
believed  that  the  North  would  not  fight,  because 
the  latter  was  conscientiously  opposed  to  the 
duel,  and  on  account  of  its  many  historic  yield- 
ings  to  the  Southern  threat  of  the  dissolution  of 
the  Union.  Certainly  the  modest  estimate  was 
current  in  Dixie  that  one  Southerner  could  whip 
two  Northern  men  at  least,  and  often  his  claim 
rose  to  being  equal  to  four  of  them.  Of  course 
the  War  disabused  both  sides  of  their  delusions 
on  this  subject  and  taught  North  and  South  not 
only  mutual  respect  but  admiration  for  their 
common  American  valor. 

From  the  House  we  pass  to  the  Senate,  where 
was  taking  place  the  same  Alignment,  though 
the  proceedings  were  physically  not  so  vigorous 
and  mentally  not  so  explosive.  The  time  was 
chiefly  occupied  in  maneuvering  for  the  approach 
ing  Presidency.  The  leading  candidates  were  in 
the  Senate,  Douglas  and  Seward,  both  from  the 
North;  the  fact  is  significant,  that  the  South,  in 
times  past  the  furnisher  of  Presidents,  had  now 
no  candidate.  It  had,  however,  a  leader  of  its 
Oligarchy,  which  was  working  to  name  the  can 
didate,  or,  as  his  election  seemed  hopeless,  to 
dissolve  the  Union.  The  head  and  spokesman 
of  the  Oligarchy  was  Jefferson  Davis,  between 


CHAPTEB  III.  —  THE  FIRST  ALIGNMENT.     347 

whom  and  Douglas  lay  the  fight  which  had  in 
view  the  coming  Democratic  nomination.  Doug 
las  reaffirmed  his  Popular  Sovereignty,  Davis 
asserted  the  absolute  right  of  property  in  slaves 
and  its  protection  in  the  Territories  by  the  Gov 
ernment.  By  these  discussions  the  rent  in  the 
Democratic  party  was  not  only  widened,  but 
each  side  took  its  position,  aligning  itself  for 
the  Convention  soon  to  be  held.  The  effect 
upon  Douglas  must  be  noted  as  it  determined  his 
future  political  attitude.  He  became  fully  con 
vinced  that  the  Oligarchy  meditated  Secession, 
and  he  made  up  his  mind  to  fight  it  with  all  his 
might.  In  fact  Davis  pushed  him  to  take  such 
a  stand.  In  his  heart  he  became  more  hostile  to 
the  Oligarchy,  which  hostility  it  bitterly  re 
turned,  than  he  was  to  the  Republicans,  with 
whom  he  had  at  least  Unionism  in  common. 

Seward,  the  supposed  candidate  of  the  Repub 
licans  for  the  Presidency,  participated  also  in 
these  Senatorial  discussions.  April  29th  he 
made  a  speech  which  may  be  deemed  his  prepara 
tory  statement  addressed  to  the  Republican 
National  Convention.  As  the  South  took  for 
granted  that  he  would  be  nominated,  it  directed 
its  guns  chiefly  against  him,  indulging  in  un 
measured  abuse,  even  to  the  point  of  calling  him 
a  traitor.  But  Seward  was  an  even-tempered 
man,  and  the  key-note  of  his  speech  was  modera 
tion.  He  noticed  the  Southern  threats  of  dis- 


348  THE  TEN  YEARS1  WAR.  —  PART II. 

union,  but  he  did  not  believe  that  there  would 
be  any  attempt  to  execute  them.  Then  "  it  will 
be  an  overflowing  source  of  shame"  if  the  North 
and  South  cannot  live  harmoniously  together, 
and  "  preserve  our  unequaled  institutions." 
Where  now  is  his  "  irrepressible  conflict"  which 
is  certainly  raging  hotter  than  ever?  In  these 
Senatorial  debates  of  1860,  Douglas  showed  him 
self  the  deeper-seeing  man,  the  greater  states 
man,  the  more  resolute  defender  of  his  principle 
and  of  the  Union.  Seward  leaves  the  impression 
that  he  would  run  the  danger  of  compromising 
away  the  victory  which  his  Party  might  win. 
His  speech  could  not  help  creating  distrust  of  his 
leadership.  Far  different  was  the  tone,  or  we 
might  say  the  undertone  of  Lincoln's  speech  at 
Cooper's  Institute  in  New  York  City,  delivered 
two  days  before  Seward's  in  the  Senate.  That 
inspired  confidence  and  showed  firmness  in  the 
leading  tenet  of  the  Party,  so  that  not  a  few 
Eastern  Republicans  began  also  to  see  that  their 
true  leader  had  appeared.  Seward  likewise 
dropped  his  doctrine  of  the  "  Higher  Law," 
which  Lincoln  had  never  countenanced.  Such 
are  the  Presidential  protagonists  who  now  step 
to  the  front  out  of  the  first  or  Congressional 
Alignment,  getting  ready  for  the  second  or 
that  of  the  Presidency. 

In  the  discussions  of  the  Southern  Congress 
men  of  this  period  one  cannot  help  hearing  a 
deej)  note  of  spiritual  discord,  of  inner  self -con- 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  FIRST  ALIGNMENT.    349 

tradiction.  They  abused  Seward  for  his  state 
ment  of  the  "irrepressible  conflict;  "  yet  their 
words  and  often  their  actions  were  a  pungent 
and  overwhelming  vindication  of  Seward's  rather 
mild  apothegm;  they  seemed  bent  on  proving 
that  the  conflict  was  irrepressible  just  in  their 
denial  of  it.  Then  they  denounced  Helper's 
book  as  inciting  servile  insurrection,  though 
Helper  did  not  appeal  to  the  negro  at  all,  being 
rather  unfriendly  to  him  if  anything,  but  to  the 
non-slaveholding  whites.  These,  constituting 
the  great  majority  of  the  South,  Helper  called 
on  to  overthrow  the  Oligarchic  minority,  which 
thereupon  sent  up  such  a  shout  of  wrath  that 
they  simply  told  on  themselves  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  emphasizing  as 
never  before  by  their  very  outcries  the  weakest 
and  worst  spot  in  their  system.  Then  as  to  the 
much  belabored  subject  of  John  Brown  already 
mentioned,  it  was  an  unconscious  comedy  that  so 
many  of  them,  while  damning  the  old  Puritan  to 
the  hottest  fires  of  Inferno,  should  compass,  in 
speech  at  least,  their  own  damnation  by  threat 
ening  to  do  what  he  did. 

The  three  ground-themes  of  this  Congress  — 
Seward,  Helper,  and  Brown  —  with  their  mani 
fold  variations  tuneful  and  dissonant,  have  now 
been  fairly  exhausted,  though  echoes  of  them 
will  be  still  heard  during  the  coming  campaign. 
To  this  with  its  Alignment  of  the  whole  People, 
we  pass  from  Congress. 


350  THE  TEN  Y$AK&   WAR.  —  PAR  T II, 


Seconfc  alignment 

We  have  now  come  to  another  Presidential 
year  (1860)  which  has  its  similarities  to,  yet 
differences  from,  the  previous  one  (1856).  The 
North  is  again  reaching  out  for  the  seat  of 
national  Power,  for  the  executive  branch  of 
Government,  but  the  South,  or  at  least  its  Oli 
garchy  is  inclined  to  recede  from  the  center,  and 
indeed  to  secede,  forming  a  center  of  its  own. 
Its  character  and  its  watchword  say  separation,  so 
that  its  Party,  the  Democratic,  shows  itself  sep 
arating  on  every  side.  On  the  other  hand  the 
Republican  Party  was  not  only  united  but  stood 
for  the  Union  against  Separation  and  Disunion. 
It  is  true  that  the  North  was  divided  into  two 
main  Parties  ;  but  the  Democrats  followed  Doug 
las,  whose  Popular  Sovereignty  now  meant  prac 
tically  Free-Statehood  for  Kansas,  and  for  most 
if  not  all  the  Territories.  It  had  been  shown 
that  not  only  the  Northerners  but  a  large  part  of 
the  non-slaveholding  Southerners  emigrating  to 
the  West  for  new  homes,  would  make  Free- 
States  out  of  the  public  domain.  Thus  Popular 
Sovereignty  meant  practically,  if  not  theoreti 
cally,  Free-Statehood,  and  this  the  Oligarchy 
well  knew,  so  that  it  came  to  hate  Douglas  more 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  SECOND  ALIGNMENT.     351 

than   an    outright   Republican,    deeming  him    a 
renegade. 

A  still  deeper  ground  of  unanimity  in  the 
North  between  the  Republicans  and  the  Douglas 
Democrats  was  their  common  hostility  to  the 
Oligarchic  rule  of  the  minority.  In  fact  the 
principle  of  Popular  Sovereignty  declares  this 
hostility  more  explicitly  than  the  Republican 
doctrine.  By  it  the  Will  of  the  majority  is 
made  to  determine  slavery,  a  view  very  unpalat 
able  to  the  Oligarchy,  whose  life  is  minority  rule. 
Here  we  may  place  the  ground  of  the  bitter 
attack  upon  Douglas  led  by  Jefferson  Davis  in 
the  Senate  after  the  debate  with  Lincoln.  There 
is  little  doubt  that  Douglas  felt  after  that  debate 
that  he  had  more  in  common  with  Lincoln  than 
with  Davis,  with  the  Republican  North  and 
Union  than  with  the  Democratic  South  and  Dis 
union.  As  he  listened  to  Lincoln  on  the  same 
platform,  and  heard  the  mighty  response  of  the 
People,  he  too  underwent  something  of  a  change 
within,  and  began  to  take  a  few  draughts  of  that 
Folk-Soul,  from  which  his  Washington  environ 
ment  had  so  long  separated  him.  For  Douglas 
was  in  a  number  of  points  a  different  man  after 
his  Illinois  experience ;  he  then  got  aligned  for 
the  real  contest,  and  it  was  Lincoln  who  aligned 
him  all  unconscious  to  himself. 

The  great  fact  of  the  present  year  (1860)  is 
its  conventions  and  the  resulting  campaign,  end- 


352  THE  TEN  YEABS*   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

ing  in  the  election  of  Lincoln.  These  were  more 
significant,  fuller  of  destiny  than  those  of  1856; 
also  they  sprang  more  directly  from  the  People. 
The  government  at  Washington  had  little  influ 
ence  over  either  convention,  so  completely  had 
Buchanan's  Administration  nullified  itself  in  the 
popular  mind  of  both  sections.  Still  one  could 
count  many  office-holders  at  Charleston,  and 
even  more  office-seekers  at  Chicago.  Kansas 
could  no  longer  furnish  its  crop  of  bleeding 
horrors  as  campaign  ammunition  for  the  Repub 
licans,  who,  nevertheless  had  to  affirm  as  their 
main  article  of  faith  that  the  Union  must  hence 
forth  produce  Free-States. 

The  Process  of  Secession  has  thus  reached  its 
Second  Alignment  in  the  two  great  Conventions 
of  the  year,  Republican  and  Democratic.  Really 
of  these  Conventions  there  were  five,  if  not  six 
or  more ;  indeed  they  are  not  easy  to  count,  so 
great  has  become  the  disintegration  of  Parties, 
particularly  of  the  Democratic  Party,  each  Par 
ticle  of  which  has  a  tendency  to  rush  into  a 
Convention,  draw  up  resolutions,  and  make  a 
platform.  The  spirit  of  Secession  is  already 
rampant,  manifesting  itself  ideally,  in  the  word, 
ere  it  becomes  real,  the  fact. 

1.  The  Republican  Convention.  First  of  all, 
it  was  held  in  Chicago,  the  youngest  city  of 
importance  in  the  young  West,  the  most  aspiring, 
the  most  limit-transcending  city  in  the  Union, 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE   SECOND  ALIGNMENT.     353 

and  even  in  the  World.  The  place  of  meeting 
corresponded  with  the  Party,  both  being  the 
bearers  of  a  great  destiny.  In  1856  the  Kepubli- 
can  organization  chose  Philadelphia,  an  old  city 
of  the  Old-Thirteen,  as  the  point  for  assembling 
its  delegates  and  nominating  its  President.  But 
it  has  moved  West  with  the  People,  with  the 
much-sung  course  of  Empire,  and  this  external 
fact  of  mere  locality  intimates,  even  if  dimly, 
the  real  trend  and  meaning  of  the  Convention. 
Chicago's  100,000  population  were  not  only  in 
creasing  but  doubling  with  marvelous  rapidity. 

Compared  with  the  Convention  of  1856  that 
of  1860  had  a  far  greater  number  of  practical 
politicians,  and  of  office-seekers.  The  good  and 
bad  results  of  such  a  presence  did  not  fail.  The 
idealists,  the  dreamers,  the  extremists  did  not 
contEol  the  platform  or  the  nominations.  No 
Fremont  was  possible  with  this  set  of  men,  no 
Seward  even,  who  was  found  at  the  trying 
moment  to  lack  that  supreme  political  test, 
availability.  At  first  indeed  it  seemed  to  be 
Seward  against  the  field ;  but  soon  the  contest 
was  narrowed  down  to  Seward  versus  Lincoln  — 
the  East  against  the  West,  the  old  against  the 
new,  the  original  States  against  the  derived. 
Which  will  win  in  the  cast  for  leadership  of  the 
Party  of  the  Future? 

Devices  and  political  tricks  were  employed  by 
both  sides.  Tom  Hyer,  prize-fighter  for  Seward, 

23 


354  THE  TEN  YEARS'  WAR.  —  PART II. 

was  certainly  out-yelled  by  Doc  Ames,  of 
Illinois,  a  human  fog-horn  capable  of  being 
heard  shouting  for  Lincoln  above  the  ten 
thousand  throats  of  the  Wigwam.  Enormous 
quantities  of  drink  stimulated  the  animal  of  the 
Convention,  and  money  was  not  wanting  to 
tempt  the  more  subtle  demon  of  cupidity.  So  it 
went  on  both  sides  with  prodigious  clatter, 
diamond  cut  diamond,  and  devil  scorch  devil. 
But  outside  and  above  this  infernal  part,  there  is 
no  doubt  that  the  majority  of  delegates  and  visit 
ors  were  men  of  character  and  strong  moral 
conviction,  representing  in  its  best  phase  the 
idea  which  called  the  party  into  existence. 

The  platform  was  a  masterstroke  of  both 
policy  and  principle,  hitting  the  golden  mean 
both  in  what  it  did  and  did  not  affirm.  It  gave 
validity  to  the  moral  element,  but  deftly  steered 
clear  of  any  statement  which  might  compromise 
the  party's  institutional  attitude.  Not  a  word 
about  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  though  the 
hostility  to  slavery  was  the  whole  drift  of  the 
document.  The  Dred  Scott  decision  was  not 
mentioned  though  the  power  of  Congress  to 
prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories  was  affirmed. 
There  was  nothing  about  the  Higher  Law  in  it, 
though  many  a  soul  in  that  Convention  was 
quivering  with  the  inner  conflict  between  Con 
science  and  the  Constitution.  It  was  essentially 
a  Lincoln  platform,  running  chiefly  on  the  lines 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE    SECOND  ALIGNMENT.    355 

he  had  laid  down  in  his  debate  with  Douglas. 
Greeley  did  not  make  it,  as  the  New  Yorkers 
thought;  it  was  shaped  to  win  the  doubtful 
States,  especially  Indiana  and  Pennsylvania,  as 
Illinois  had  been  won  by  Lincoln  in  1858. 

The  platform,  therefore,  called  for  its  maker, 
Lincoln.  Seward  was  doomed  from  the  start  to 
the  eye  that  could  look  into  the  situation ;  if 
nominated,  he  could  not  carry  the  doubtful 
States  of  the  North,  according  to  the  opinion  of 
their  delegates  at  Chicago.  Clearer  and  clearer 
it  became  that  Lincoln  was  the  only  logical 
candidate  for  such  a  platform  and  such  a  party, 
both  of  which  he  had  largely  moulded.  Seward 
with  his  Higher  Law  had  deeply  offended 
the  legal-mindedness  of  the  American  people 
generally,  though  he  undoubtedly  voiced  the 
moral-mindedness  of  many  conscientious  men. 
The  latter,  however,  as  a  rule  would  vote  for 
Lincoln,  while  the  former,  or  many  of  them, 
would  not  vote  for  Seward.  Already  we  have 
dwelt  much  upon  the  conflict  between  the  moral 
and  institutional  elements  of  the  Northern  Folk- 
Soul,  both  of  which  must  be  somehow  con 
served  and  harmonized.  The  platform  was  cer 
tainly  a  happy  solution  of  the  deepest  Republican 
dualism,  even  if  such  a  solution  could  be  but 
temporary.  Lincoln  had  shown  himself  the  best 
mediator  of  the  two  sides,  and  so  he  gets  the 
prize,  gets  it  soon.  On  the  third  ballot  he  is 
nominated. 


356  THE  TEN  YEARS'  WAR.  —  PART  II. 

2.  The  Democratic  Convention.  Its  place  of 
meeting  was  Charleston,  which  fact  also  brings 
up  its  suggestion.  This  city  had  about  40,000 
population  and  was  reported  to  be  diminishing 
in  numbers.  A  century  before  1860  it  ranked 
as  the  most  important  seaport  and  commercial 
center  in  the  country.  In  the  same  century  its 
imports  had  dropped  a  half.  Thus  it  was  a 
losing  city,  the  most  retrograde  probably  in  the 
country.  Its  people  knewits  decline  and  in  their 
hearts  bitterly  blamed  the  Union  for  it,  since 
Charleston  was  more  prosperous  in  the  colonial 
than  in  the  federal  period.  Its  character  was, 
therefore,  deeply  separative  with  a  passion  for 
Disunion.  Then  it  lay  in  the  Old-Thirteen  of 
the  South,  which  showed  the  strongest  contrast 
with  the  New  North-West.  The  Republican 
Convention  had  gone  forward  from  Philadelphia 
to  Chicago,  the  Democratic  Convention  had  gone 
backward  from  Cincinnati  to  Charleston  —  the 
one  advancing  from  an  old  State  to  a  new,  and 
the  other  from  a  new  State  to  an  old  ;  the  one  too 
had  moved  further  North  and  the  other  further 
South.  Without  putting  too  much  stress  upon 
this  interplay  of  localities,  we  have  to  take  into 
account  the  genius  loci,  which  has  always  been 
recognized  to  have  its  influence  and  its  meaning. 
Throbbing  Chicago,  backward  Charleston;  dem 
ocratic  Illinois,  aristocratic  South  Carolina;  the 
North-West  with  its  freedom,  the  South-East 


CHAPTER  HI.  —  THE  SECOND  ALIGNMENT.    357 

with  its  slavery  certainly  are  suggestive.  The 
fact  is,  Republicans  could  not  go  to  the  one, 
and  Democrats  would  not  go  to  the  other. 

Certain  advantages  should  be  noted.  There 
was  no  prize-fighter,  no  professional  yeller,  at 
the  Charleston  Convention.  It  was  grave,  de- 
corus,  even  funereal.  The  prospective  split  in 
the  Party  was  a  damper  upon  enthusiasm.  Sev 
eral  hundred  of  Buchanan's  office-holders  were 
on  hand,  but  they  counted  for  little.  Democ 
racy  was  certainly  very  sick;  it  might  scream 
with  pain,  but  could  not  shout  for  joy.  There 
was  a  marked  absence  of  carousing,  and  a 
marked  presence  of  praying  at  old  St.  Michael's. 
The  vast  outpour  of  the  People,  like  that  at 
Chicago,  was  totally  wanting.  It  was  noticed 
that  even  Southern  hospitality  was  not  very 
profuse  to  Northern  delegates,  nearly  all  of 
them  Douglas  men,  who  had  become  odious  to 
the  Oligarchy,  since  Douglas,  with  his  Popular 
Sovereignty,  had  made  it  face  majority  rule, 
and  declare  itself  explicitly  against  the  same  in 
the  Territories. 

April  23rd  the  Convention  met,  and  went 
through  a  peculiar  and  startling  development, 
mirroring  the  full  disintegrating  process  of  the 
Democratic  party  and  also  of  the  Nation.  The 
Douglas  men  had  a  majority  of  the  delegates, 
which  was  the  nominating  power,  but  the  South 
had  the  majority  of  States,  seventeen  out  of 


358          THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

thirty -three,  having  won  the  delegations  from 
California  and  Oregon,  two  new  States,  through 
Buchanan's  officials.  And  yet  these  two  Free- 
States  were  really  anti-slavery,  casting  a  large 
vote  for  Douglas  in  the  Presidential  election, 
though  both  of  them  gave  a  still  larger  vote 
to  Lincoln.  Now  it  was  this  majority  of  States 
which  controlled  the  platform  through  the  Com 
mittee  of  thirty-three,  one  from  each  State. 
Thus  the  old  see-saw  begins  just  in  the  heart  of 
the  party;  the  South,  though  in  a  minority,  will 
control  the  platform  against  the  power  of  the 
majority.  Then  the  fight  opened  with  a  fierce 
ness  unparallelled  in  any  previous  Convention  of 
any  Party.  It  was  war,  which,  though  of 
words,  pre-figured  the  real  war,  and  especially 
the  attitude  of  the  Douglas  Democracy  in  the 
real  war.  Note  here  that  the  South  again  seized 
upon  a  form  to  thwart  a  right;  it  was  Kansas 
once  more  —  mere  legality  versus  the  spirit  of 
the  law  or  of  the  established  rule.  Moreover 
the  Convention  gave  the  strongest  possible  proof 
of  Lincoln's  far-seeing  apothegm:  This  Nation 
cannot  endure  half-slave,  half-free.  Yea,  the 
Democratic  Party  has  reached  the  point  that 
it  cannot  endure  half -slave,  half -free.  In 
1858  Douglas  bitterly  condemned  the  doctrine 
of  Lincoln,  but  in  1860  at  Charleston  the  Doug 
las  Democracy  are  verifying  it  in  deed  if  not 
in  word.  The  fact  is,  they  have  pushed  one 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE    SECOND  ALIGNMENT.     359 

step  beyond  Lincoln  and  are  acting  if  not 
directly  saying :  Not  merely  this  Nation,  but 
this  Party  cannot  endure  half-slave,  half-free. 

The  Douglas  platform  was  adopted,  the 
majority  of  Democrats  therein  asserted  itself 
against  the  Oligarchic  minority. 

Then  came  the  secession  of  the  Cotton  States, 
the  whole  tier  from  South  Carolina  to  Texas 
(with  Arkansas  added)  going  out  of  the  Con 
vention  as  they  did  out  of  the  Union  less  than  a 
year  afterwards.  This  Convention  seems  to  have 
as  its  historical  purpose  to  pre-enact  the  course 
of  secession  after  the  election  of  Lincoln,  to 
reveal  beforehand  the  design  and  conduct  of  the 
Oligarchy.  Moreover  Yancey,  its  most  eloquent 
orator,  demands  not  merely  political  but  moral 
submission,  the  surrender  of  the  conviction  that 
slavery  is  wrong.  The  cause  of  the  Democracy's 
defeat  in  the  North  was  that  "  you  did  not  take 
the  position  directly  that  slavery  was  right  and 
therefore  ought  to  be."  Hence  it  comes  that 
"you  have  gone  down  before  the  enemy." 
Moreover  "the  cause  of  all  this  discord"  has 
been  "your  admission  that  slavery  is  wrong." 
So  one  has  to  say  that  Yancey,  too,  is  a  sup 
porter  of  Lincoln's  doctrine  that  this  Nation 
must  become  all  one  thing  or  the  other;  he  like 
wise  confirms  Lincoln's  statement  a  few  months 
before  (in  the  Cooper's  Institute  speech)  that 
the  South  will  be  placated  only  by  this:  "  Cease 


360          THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

to  call  slavery  wrong  and  join  them  in  calling  it 
right."  Yancey  also  classifies  "  Black  Repub 
licans,  Free-Soilers  and  Squatter-  Sovereignty 
men  "  under  the  one  rubric  of  abolitionists  —  "all 
representing  the  common  sentiment  that  slavery 
is  wrong.  " 

The  Convention  adopted  the  two-thirds  rule. 
Douglas  had  the  decided  majority,  receiving  three 
and  four  times  more  than  any  other  candidate ; 
still  after  many  ballots  it  was  found  that  he  could 
not  get  the  requisite  majority.  The  Convention 
adjourned  to  meet  .  at  Baltimore,  June  18th, 
when  the  nominee  of  the  Republican  Convention 
would  be  known.  The  seceders  chose  Richmond. 
But  in  this  second  Convention  at  Baltimore,  in 
stead  of  harmony,  a  second  secession  took  place, 
that  of  Virginia  who  was  followed  by  most  of 
the  delegates  from  North  Carolina  and  Tennessee, 
with  additions  from  Kentucky,  Maryland  and 
some  other  States.  The  second  tier  of  Slave- 
States  now  joins  the  first  and  nominates  Breck- 
enridge.  The  Douglas  Democrats,  having  the 
requisite  majority,  proceed  to  nominate  their 
chieftain.  So  in  the  Democratic  Convention  of 
1860  are  pre-enacted  the  two  great  secessions 
from  the  Union,  soon  to  occur.  First,  the 
Southern  tier,  the  Cotton  States,  go  out  and 
•mite  in  a  body,  foretelling  the  Confederacy; 
then  after  a  time  of  attempted  compromise,  the 
fjecond  or  middle  tier  follows,  and  the  two  tiers 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE   SECOND  ALI&XMEtfT.     361 

set  up  for  themselves  selecting  their  own  candi 
date  for  President.  Is  not  this  a  great  lesson 
for  the  Northern  leaders  of  the  Democracy,  a 
preparatory  discipline?  Secession  has  certainly 
got  hold  of  the  Democratic  Party  and  has  dis 
rupted  it  ere  trying  to  disrupt  the  Union.  More 
over  it  feels  that  it  is  getting  its  own,  the  conse 
quences  of  its  policy  toward  and  with  the  South 
for  many  years. 

3.  The  Campaign.  The  Eepublican  plan  for 
the  Campaign  was  clear  from  the  start.  All  the 
States  which  voted  for  Fremont  in  1856  would 
now  vote  for  Lincoln,  probably  with  increased 
majorities.  The  same  issue  was  before  the 
People,  only  intensified,  deepened,  and  clarified. 
More  than  ever  the  Folk-Soul  of  the  North  was 
resolved  to  make  this  State-producing  Union  the 
mother  of  Free-States  only.  Effort  must  then 
be  concentrated  upon  those  Northern  States 
which  went  for  Buchanan  in  1856,  and  gave  him 
the  election.  The  three  main  ones  were  Penn 
sylvania,  Indiana,  and  Illinois.  In  addition  to 
the  general  issue  above  mentioned,  for  these 
States  special  issues  were  invoked  and  used  with 
effect. 

Pennsylvania  was  torn  from  her  Democratic 
mooring  through  the  appeal  to  the  protective 
tariff,  which  was  favored  by  the  Chicago  plat 
form,  but  which  Democrats  in  Congress  had 
voted  against,  and  their  ^platform  in  1856  had 


362          THE  TEN  YEABS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

distinctly  opposed.  It  was  an  outside,  selfish 
issue,  adapted  to  that  one  State,  in  which  the 
tariff  was  declared  to  be  "  the  essential  plank" 
of  the  whole  Chicago  platform  —  not  the  Free- 
State,  but  pig-iron  is  the  main  thing.  To  be 
sure,  New  England  also  was  looking  out  for  her 
particular  interest  and  saw  it  in  a.  high  pro 
tective  tariff;  but  it  must  be  said  to  her  honor 
that  she  would  have  voted  the  Republican 
ticket  on  its  right  issue,  even  without  its  tariff 
plank,  though  doubtless  \vitli  diminished  majori 
ties.  The  conscientious  Yankee  put  principle 
first,  though  he  has  always  had  the  remarkable 
faculty  of  joining  thrift  very  closely  and  har 
moniously  to  his  principle.  But  this  was  not 
the  end  of  Pennsylvania's  bargaining  at  Chi 
cago;  in  spite  of  Lincoln's  prohibition,  she  ex 
torted  the  promise  of  a  cabinet  position  as  the 
price  of  her  support;  the  result  was  Simon 
Cameron  gets  the  War  department,  a  kind  of 
James  Buchanan  in  political  wire-pulling  coupled 
with  official  incapacity.  The  statement  may  seem 
harsh  and  possibly  impolitic,  but  the  historian 
pondering  upon  these  and  later  years  will  think, 
if  he  does  not  say,  that  Pennsylvania  has  clearly 
proved  herself  to  be  the  most  self-seeking 
State  in  the  Union.  Other  States  have  indeed 
followed  hard  after,  but  have  never  overtaken 
her  in  this  peculiar  supremacy.  Of  course  she 
poured  out  her  blood  for  the  Union  and  for  higher 


CHAPTEE  III.  —  THE   SECOND  ALIGNMENT.     363 

duties,  but  this  very  blood  of  hers  seems  to 
have  been  colored  red  in  its  corpuscles  by  pig- 
iron.  And  probably  her  greatest  statesman  of 
this  period  —  though  he  was  not  oppressively 
great  —  was  re-baptized  with  the  surname  of 
Pig-iron,  for  his  unfailing  advocacy  of  the  one 
all-important  cause.  But  even  if  we  know  that 
the  means  here  employed  will  bear  their  dragon- 
crop  of  ills  in  the  future,  let  us  herald  the  re 
sult:  Pennsylvania  gives  32,000  Republican 
majority  in  the  October  election. 

Indiana  was  an  October  State  also,  but  of  a 
different  political  character  from  Pennsylvania. 
The.  Southern  part  of  the  State  was  dominantly 
negro-hating,  but  this  trait  could  be  deftly 
turned  to  the  advantage  of  Free-Stateism,  as  we 
have  already  noted  in  Kansas.  The  dislike  of 
the  blacks  could  also  be  appealed  to  by  the  art 
ful  Republican  orator  recounting  the  efforts  of 
the  South  to  restore  the  African  slave-trade,  and 
thus  to  bring  more  negroes  into  the  country  — 
horror  of  horrors  to  the  Indiauian,  not  out  of 
sympathy  but  antipathy.  The  argument  against 
minority  rule  likewise  had  its  effect,  especially 
as  most  of  these  people  came  from  the  non- 
slaveholding  class  of  the  South.  It  is  said  that 
Helper's  book  was  extensively  circulated  among 
these  people  with  telling  effect,  both  in  Indiana 
and  in  Illinois.  The  latter  State,  however,  had 
been  carried  by  Lincoln  in  1858  against  Doug- 


364         THE  TEN  YE AltS*    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

las,  and  was  safe  for  him  again.  Thus  the 
Campaign  was  colored  variously  in  the  various 
localities ;  but  underneath  all  this  diverse  play  of 
prejudice,  passion.,  and  selfishness  was  working 
the  one  deep  conviction  of  the  Northern  Folk- 
Soul  that  the  Union  must  henceforth  not  only 
exist,  but  exist  as  Free-State  producing  only. 

Besides  the  Republican  Party  and  the  two 
wings  of  the  Democrats,  a  fourth  Party  was  in 
the  field  calling  itself  the  Constitutional  Union 
Party,  whose  Presidential  candidate  was  Bell  of 
Tennessee.  It  had  no  platform  except  its  name  ; 
it  ignored  the  existing  conflict,  and  must  be 
deemed  an  attempt  to  revert  to  the  start  and  to 
begin  over  again,  as  if  the  whole  thing  had  gone 
wrong  since  the  formation  of  the  Union  and 
Constitution.  As  well  might  the  people  try  to 
return  to  Paradise,  in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  Fall 
of  Man !  It  is  astonishing  how  large  a  vote  this 
ticket  received  in  the  South,  though  in  the 
North  it  lugged  behind  all  the  rest. 

The  result  toward  which  events  had  long 
been  marching  was  now  reached;  Lincoln  was 
elected. 


CHAPTER  111.-  7 HE  7 HIED  ALIGNMENT.     365 


alignment* 

From  the  ballot  to  the  bullet  History  is  moving 
with  a  hurried  march  of  events,  which  are  now 
to  be  seen  in  their  order.  The  process  of  Seces 
sion  advances  to  its  final  stage,  in  which  it  shows 
a  new  Alignment  of  the  two  sides  of  the  divided 
Nation,  the  third  one  of  the  present  period,  and 
which  may  also  be  called  Secession  realized.  It 
is  a  rapidly  shifting  time  bubbling  over  with  un 
expected  occurrences,  whose  drift  lies  not  always 
on  the  surface,  but  has  at  first  a  bewildering 
effect  upon  the  minds  of  the  people  as  they  are 
borne  along  in  it  toward  the  sudden  burst  of 
light,  which  reveals  to  them  in  all  distinctness 
their  coming  task. 

Accordingly  we  have  reached  that  part  of  the 
present  chapter  in  which  the  Process  of  Secession 
completes  itself,  and  the  States  engaged  in  it 
align  themselves  against  those  which  remain  in 
the  Union  and  are  getting  ready  to  defend  the 
same.  Secession  thus  comes  to  its  final  develop 
ment  and  realization.  This  takes  place  in  the 
five  months  and  some  days  between  the  election 
of  Lincoln  and  the  firing  on  Fort  Sumter,  fol 
lowed  immediately  by  his  call  for  troops  to  sup 
press  the  rebellion  into  which  Secession  has 
grown. 


366  THE  TEX  YE  All  &    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

Secession  has  indeed  passed  through  several 
stages  of  evolution  before  this  final  flowering. 
It  has  been  threatened  since  the  formation 
of  the  Union  by  individuals,  and  once  by 
a  State,  South  Carolina  in  1832,  which  never 
seriously  renounced  it  and  is  again  going  to  start 
it  in  the  present  crisis.  But  now  it  has  become 
the  purpose  of  not  merely  one  State  but  of  a 
group  of  States  in  the  South;  indeed  the  entire 
Southern  section  is  more  or  less  deeply  tinged 
with  it.  Since  1858  this  purpose  has  been  pro 
claimed,  promulgated  and  crystallized  into  a  fixed 
resolution  on  the  part  of  certain  States,  especially 
in  case  of  the  election  of  a  Republican  President 
in  1860.  This  event  has  transpired,  and  in  the 
Process  of  Secession  the  inner  resolution  is  rap 
idly  passing  into  the  outer  deed.  We  are,  there 
fore,  now  to  see  Secession  realizing  itself  in 
action,  which  shows  the  involved  States  seceding 
from  the  Union  and  placing  themselves  one  by 
one  in  a  line  of  battle  against  the  States  which 
maintain  the  Union. 

Such  is  the  Third  Alignment  in  which  we  be 
hold  Secession  realized. 

The  two  previous  Alignments,  which  have 
been  named  the  Congressional  and  the  Presi 
dential,  have  been  stages  of  the  total  Process 
of  Secession,  which  rounds  itself  out  to  com 
pletion  with  this  Third  Alignment.  In  Con 
gress  (1858—9)  was  the  war  of  words  waged  by 


CHAPTER  III.  —  TUK   THIRD  ALIGNMENT.      367 

the  representatives  of  both  sides,  und  preluding 
the  war  of  deeds,  which  was  the  grand  reality 
of  the  conflict  carried  on  by  the  People  them 
selves.  In  the  Presidential  Alignment  the 
weapon  was  the  ballot,  the  peaceful  method  of 
settling  national  disputes  by  means  of  the  con 
stituted  majority.  .  But  there  is  no  peace,  since 
the  South  will  not  recognize  the  rule  of  the 
majority.  So  after  the  election  of  the  Presi 
dent,  events  march  rapidly  forward  to  the  Third 
Alignment,  when  a  new  movement  sets  in,  to  be 
recounted  hereafter. 

Actual  Secession  starts  with  South  Carolina  at 
Charleston,  then  it  sweeps  into  the  so-called 
Cotton  States,  which  proceed  to  form  the  South 
ern  Confederacy  with  capital  at  Montgomery. 
Here  there  is  a  halt,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
into  line  the  rest  of  the  Slave-States.  Partic 
ularly  Virginia  is  angled  for  and  is  finally  caught, 
when  the  capital  changes  to  Richmond,  and 
the  new  government  with  its  Constitution  is 
brought  ready-made  to  the  State  which  once 
had  the  chief  hand  in  making  and  administering 
the  old  government  with  its  Constitution.  The 
President,  Jefferson  Davis,  is  also  accepted. 
Such  is  the  part  which  Virginia  is  brought  to 
play  in  the  Southern  Confederacy,  certainly  not 
a  creative  part,  but  rather  an  imposed  one  from 
the  outside,  even  though  it  be  disguised  under 
the  name  of  an  alliance.  The  act,  however, 


368          THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAK.  —  PAItT  II. 

broke  the  old  mother  of  States  and  of  the  Union 
itself  in  twain ;  hereafter  History  must  know 
two  Virginias. 

Very  rapid  and  numerous  and  intricate  are  the 
movements  of  this  stormy  time,  which  make  it 
not  easy  to  put  into  order.  It  concentrates  in 
its  brief"  five  months  what  otherwise  the  Spirit 
of  the  Ages  scatters  through  many  years,  if  not 
through  centuries.  Its  outer  appearance  is  that 
of  a  vast  maelstrom  which  suddenly  swells  up 
from  the  depth  of  the  Ocean,  seething  and 
swirling  in  multitudinous  eddies,  each  of  which 
dashes  madly  against  the  others,  yet  belongs  to 
the  one  great  vortex  of  waters.  What  we  are  to 
see  is  this  unity,  the  one  main  process  and  the 
more  important  subordinate  processes  in  the 
mightily  agitated  concourse  of  occurrences  jost 
ling  each  other  in  furious  energy. 

First  let  us  grasp  this  last  Alignment  as  Seces 
sion  realizing  itself  in  three  grand  acts,  beginning 
with  South  Carolina,  then  passing  to  the  Lower 
Tier  of  Slave-States,  and  finally  winning  the 
Middle  Tier  of  the  South.  But  the  Upper  or 
Northern  Tier  of  Slave-States  Secession  never 
succeeded  in  control  ing.  Such  are  the  three 
grand  acts  of  it  unfolding  in  order  like  a  drama; 
each  of  these  acts,  too,  has  its  own  process 
which  is  quite  similar  in  all  of  them  and  consists 
of  three  main  elements,  namely,  (a)  the  South 
as  the  active  secessive  irritant;  (b)  the  Admin- 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIED  ALIGNMENT.      «%9 

istration-at  the  Capital  as  the  irritated  point, 
passive  at  first  yet  slowly  rising  to  resistance ; 
and  lastly  (c)  the  North  looking  on  and  ponder 
ing  over  the  various  prescribed  compromises  till 
it  bursts  forth  in  a  great  overflow  southward  to 
reach  the  seat  of  all  this  irritation  and  to  wipe 
out  secession  and  with  it  slavery. 

This  general  movement  and  its  sub-movements 
we  shall  seek  to  indicate  to  the  outer  eye  by  cer 
tain  marks  as  well  as  to  unfold  them  inwardly  in 
their  historic  significance.  The  period  embraces 
the  last  four  months  of  Buchanan,  and  one 
mouth  and  some  days  of  Lincoln.  Buchanan, 
however,  shows  two  different  attitudes  toward 
Secession  which  will  be  considered  later  on. 

1.  Secession  of  South  Carolina.  One  State 
starts  the  movement  of  Secession,  not  without 
some  kind  of  agreement  that  others  would  fol 
low.  South  Carolina  had  already  won  the  name 
of  being  the  most  refractory  and  dissatisfied 
member  of  the  Union.  Her  greatest  son,  John 
C.  Calhoun,  was  the  chief  intellectual  propagator 
of  the  doctrine  of  Secession,  as  well  as  of  the 
morality  of  Slavery.  During  the  Presidential 
canvas  of  1860  she  had  begun  to  move,  and  after 
its  result  was  announced,  she  started  at  once  to 
realize  Secession,  and  passed  its  ordinance  in  six 
weeks  (December  20th). 

Thus  South  Carolina  takes  the  initiative  in 
dissolving  the  Union.  It  is  generally  conceded 


370          THE  TEN  YEARV   WAR. —  PART II. 

that  the  act  was  u  true  manifestation  of  her 
character.  Bat  how  did  such  a  character  arise? 
Some  have  ascribed  it  to  the  large  admixture  of 
French  blood,  also  of  Celtic  blood  in  her  com 
position ;  others  say  that  it  has  some  connection 
with  the  exceedingly  heterogeneous  nature  of 
her  original  settlers  who  came  of  very  diverse 
European  stocks.  But  the  pivotal  fact  is  that  her 
deep  dissatisfaction  arose  from  the  conscious 
ness  of  being  a  sinking  State  as  compared  with 
he?  sisters  in  the  American  Union,  especially  her 
Northern  sisters.  Such  was  the  story  loudly 
told  by  the  census  of  1860,  and  even  by  that  of 
1850.  Yet  South  Carolina  blamed  the  wrong 
thing  for  her  losing  race.  She  believed  that  the 
Union  was  the  cause  of  her  relative  decline,  and 
that  the  North  had  all  the  profit  of  the  federal 
association  of  the  States.  The  Oligarchy,  hug 
ging  the  source  of  its  power,  refused  to  see  the 
baleful  effects  of  slavery,  but  claimed  to  find  in  it 
only  advantage  and  excellence.  Particularly 
the  Tariff  was  reprobated  by  South  Carolina  as 
a  leading  cause  of'  her  decadence,  though 
strangely  her  representatives  in  1857  sup 
ported  it  in  the  National  Congress,  and 
in  1861  voted  for  its  re-enactment  in  the 
Confederate  Congress.  But  whatever  might 
be  assigned  as  the  cause,  the  ever-present  op 
pressive  fact  lowered  over  South  Carolina  that 
she  was  of  much  higher  relative  importance  in 


CHAPTER  HI.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     371 

1760  than  in  1860,  that  she  had  been  always 
growing  greater  before  and  less  after  the  forma 
tion  of  the  Union.  Already  in  1800  she  had  be 
gun  to  look  back  upon  her  colonial  period  as  the 
good  old  era  of  highest  prosperity  and  power,  so 
that  by  the  time  of  her  Secession  two  generations 
of  her  people  had  brooded  over  the  continued 
and  ever-increasing  decline  of  their  State.  In 
deed  it  is  highly  probable  that  a  majority  of  the 
people  of  South  Carolina  never  wished  to  sepa 
rate  from  Great  Britain  in  the  Revolutionary 
period,  and  regarded  independence  as  a  calamity. 
If  this  be  so,  she  was  a  discontented  State  from 
the  start,  and  was  born  kicking. 

In  some  such  way  we  seek  to  account  for  the 
spirit  of  South  Carolina  in  1860,  and  the  part 
which  she  played,  revealing  her  passionate  hate 
of  the  Union,  which  must  have  been  iubred  and 
transmitted  through  generations.  Moreover  this 
spirit  was  well-nigh  unanimous  in  her  people  and 
gave  to  her  a  unique  place  as  the  standing  pro 
tagonist  of  Secession  which  was  her  deepest  love. 
She  developed  men  of  talent  in  speech  and  writ 
ing,  but  their  voice  was  that  of  protest  and  dis 
content,  often  of  downright  defiance  of  the  ex 
istent  order.  The  most  froward  member  of  the 
Union  we  have  to  deem  her  from  the  beginning, 
so  that  by  the  time  of  the  Great  War  hereditv 
had  repeated  and  confirmed  this  trait  of  her 


372  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  -  PART  If. 

character   till    it    had  become  the  mainspring  of 
till  her  political  action. 

South  Carolina,  at  her  withdrawal  in  1860, 
adopted  a  Declaration  of  Independence  which 
was  fondly  supposed  to  rival  that  of  Jefferson 
in  1776,  and  which  proposed  to  give  the  grounds 
for  her  separation  from  the  Union.  Leaving 
out  mere  assertions  about  the  legal  right  of  Se 
cession,  and  about  the  nature  of  the  Constitu 
tion  as  a  simple  compact  between  the  States, 
we  may  note  the  two  or  three  complaints.  First 
is  that  the  North,  through  her  Personal  Liberty 
Bills  against  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  had  broken 
the  compact,  and  hence  "  South  Carolina  is 
released  from  her  obligation."  Here  she  makes 
herself  judge  of  an  infraction  which  belongs  to 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  —  a  very  common  disregard  of 
the  Constitution  in  the  South  at  this  time. 
Yet  a  South  Carolina  statesman  had  once  said 
that  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  was  uncon 
stitutional  through  its  violation  of  States- 
Rights.  The  same  doctrine  had  been  affirmed 
by  the  Judiciary  of  Wisconsin,  but  Wisconsin 
did  not  propose  to  secede  because  it,  thought 
that  one  of  its  rights  as  a  State  had  been 
violated.  This  plea  was  only  a  pretext  for  do 
ing  something  which  had  a  deeper  though  un 
spoken  reason.  Another  complaint  was  that  the 
North  had  elected  a  man  as  President  who  "  had 


CHAPTEE  III.  —  THE  TI1IED  ALIGNMENT.     373 

declared  that  this  Government  cannot  endure 
half  slave,  half  free."  And  yet  was  not  every 
act  of  South  Carolina  at  present  fulfilling  the 
prediction?  Indeed  every  word  was,  in  spite  of 
her  growls.  Eveiy  convention,  every  public- 
meeting  resounded  with  speeches :  Now  we  shall 
have  a  Government  all-slave,  entirely  homo 
geneous.  Says  R.  B.  Rhett,  a  chief  mouth 
piece,  in  an  address:  "Our  Confederacy  must 
be  a  slave-holding  Confederacy ;  we  have  had 
enough  of  a  Confederacy  with  dissimilar  insti 
tutions."  So  we  see  that  South  Carolina,  while 
in  the  act  of  cursing  Lincoln's  prophecy,  is  ful 
filling  it  both  in  word  and  deed  far  more  rapidly 
and  completely  than  Lincoln  ever  dreamed  to  be 
possible.  Still  another  complaint  is  that  the 
North  has  "  denounced  as  sinful  the  institution 
of  slavery."  The  Northern  conscience  must 
surrender  its  conviction  as  to  the  wrongfulness 
of  slavery  and  believe  as  we  do,  or  we  shall  break 
up  the  Union.  There  can  be  no  longer  tolerated 
any  difference  of  opinion  upon  that  point,  not 
only  in  the  slaveholding  South,  but  even  in  the 
non-slaveholding  North.  Toleration  may  be 
allowed  in  religion,  but  in  politics  its  day  is  over. 
How  the  best  and  most  liberal  minds  of  the 
South  could  become  so  intolerant  upon  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery  is  still  one  of  the  staggering  psy 
chological  problems  of  that  era.  We  can  oulv 
regard  it  as  one  of  the  ever-increasing  spiritual 


374  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

effects  of  the  domination  resulting  from  relation 
of  master  and  slave,  seeking  as  it  does  to  dictate 
even  the  moral  conviction  of  the  individual  not 
only  in  the  South  but  also  in  the  North. 

Such  was  South  Carolina's  Declaration  of  In 
dependence,  destined  never  to  have  its  Fourth  of 
July,  or  to  be  a  landmark  of  humanity's  libera 
tion.  Not  so  much  is  there  declared  in  it  an 
independence  of  the  Union  as  of  the  whole  world  ; 
not  so  much  a  separation  from  the  North  as  from 
civilization;  not  so  much  a  defiance  of  Lincoln 
as  of  the  World-Spirit.  It  was  in  speeches  ac 
knowledged  "that  the  sentiment  of  Europe  is 
against  us."  A  stronger  declaration  was  that, 
"we  are  isolated  from  the  whole  world."  It 
was  also  recognized  that  the  commonwealth  was 
in  decay,  but  this  decay  was  attributed  to  the 
decline  of  slavery  in  the  Nation.  Gleams  of 
confession,  though  unintended  and  indirect,  reveal 
the  undercurrent  of  opinion  that  South  Carolina 
is  falling  to  the  rear  in  the  grand  march  of  the 
States.  And  for  this,  of  course,  she  blames  not 
herself  but  the  Union. 

Though  South  Carolina  has  seceded,  her  action 
involves  the  entire  Nation,  with  which  she  neces 
sarily  begins  to  be  in  an  exciting  process.  The 
center  of  irritation  is  her  leading  city,  Charleston, 
in  whose  harbor  lie  three  forts  belon^in^  to  the 

O         O 

United  States,  and  commanding  the  city  with  its 
approaches  by  sea.  Hence  in  Charleston  rises 


CHAPTER  TIL  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     375 

practically  the  question  of  Coercion,  tne  supreme 
Southern  question  next  to  that  of  Secession. 
After  seceding,  South  Carolina  claimed  the 


of  determining  how  she  should  be  treated 

O 

by  the  United  States.  Hands  off,  let  me 
take  the  National  property  which  is  within  my 
limits,  or  within  what  I  assert  to  be  rny 
limits.  Otherwise  there  is  the  Coercion  of  a 
Sovereign  State.  For,  to  tell  the  truth,  I,  South 
Carolina,  possess  not  only  sovereignty  over  my 
self,  but  over  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  at  least  so  far  as  to  have  the  right  to 
dictate  what  it  shall  do  in  my  case.  Otherwise 
I  shall  cry  out  Coercion,  at  which  diabolic  word 
all  the  devils  in  the  other  Slave-States  will  begin 
to  dance  and  grimace  and  spit  fire  in  an  uncon 
trollable  frenzy.  It  is  strange  how  the  spirit  of 
domination  nestled  in  that  little  category 
Coercion,  whose  magic  spell  had  the  power  of 
sending  many  a  soul  to  Hades  and  even  of 
thrusting  whole  States  down  into  the  Purgatory 
of  Disunion,  there  to  undergo  a  painful  peniten 
tial  discipline  till  they  be  regenerated  into  free 
dom  and  true  equality. 

Accordingly  we  shall  glance  at  the  elements  of 
this  process,  which  are  these:  Charleston  as  the 
active,  irritating  center  of  Secession,  now  the 
Prime  Mover;  then  the  Government  at  Wash 
ington  as  the  irritated  counterpart  dealing 
with  the  problem  of  Coercion;  finally  The 


376  THE  TEN  YEARS'1    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

People  of  the  North,  the  silent  bearers  of 
Nationality,  looking  anxiously  at  the  rising 
trouble  and  testing  the  various  schemes  of 
conciliation  and  compromise.  Quiescent,  rather 
dazed  is  the  North  during  these  two  months, 
brooding  gloomily  over  the  future  which  threatens 
to  bring  forth  such  a  furious  progeny  of  ills. 

(a)  Charleston,  still  the  chief  city  of  South 
Carolina,  had  been  once  the  chief  city  of  the 
South,  if  not  of  the  whole  Atlantic  seaboard.  Its 
trade  extended  far  into  the  Northern  States. 
Philadelphia  at  one  time  is  said  to  have  obtained 
its  finest  imports  through  Charleston  instead  of 
getting  them  through  New  York  or  through 
itself.  As  had  befallen  the  whole  State,  Charles 
ton  was  a  much  more  important  city  in  1760 
than  in  1860,  its  commerce  being  not  only  rela 
tively  but  absolutely  greater  in  the  former  than 
in  the  latter  period.  If  South  Carolina  felt 
itself  to  be  a  sinking  State,  Charleston  even 
more  decidedly  felt  itself  to  be  a  sinking,  if  not 
a  sunken  city.  Its  chief  bloom  lay  in  its  colonial 
epoch,  before  the  formation  of  the  Federal  Union. 
As  stated  already,  it  came  to  hate  that  Union 
which  had  brought  it  into  the  baleful  embraces 
of  the  North,  and  which  it  deemed  to 
be  source  of  its  decline,  to  be  a  vampyre  fast 
ened  upon  its  vitals  and  sucking  its  life-blood. 
Senator  Hammond,  of  South  Carolina,  in  a  pri 
vate  letter,  written  early  in  1860,  and  since 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.      377 

printed,  betrays  the  true  underlying  conscious 
ness  of  his  State  and  its  chief  city:  "The 
North  without  us  would  be  a  motherless  calf, 
bleating  about,  and  die  of  mange  and  starva 
tion."  Here  lies  the  real  motive  lurking  in  all 
this  secession  business,  bared  of  its  pretexts 
and  its  rhetoric:  The  South  (and  especially 
South  Carolina)  is  the  mother-cow  which  is  be 
ing  milked  to  death  by  its  hungry  calf,  the 
North.  Moreover  the  same  Senator  cannot  help 
"  regarding  this  Union  as  cramping  the  South," 
particularly  South  Corolina — wherein  we  may 
well  hear  the  cry  of  the  Oligarchy  at  the  limits 
put  upon  its  extension  of  slavery.  This  is  what 
it  called  "  Northern  aggression  against  the  slave 
holder,"  who,  though  in  a  minority  both  in  his 
own  section  and  in  the  nation,  felt  something 
like  a  divine  right  to  his  domination. 

Charleston  was,  therefore,  of  all  Southern 
cities,  the  one  best  prepared  to  start  the  work  of 
Disunion.  Aside  from  this  inner  condition,  the 
outer  or  physical  situation  of  the  place  invited 
or  perchance  impelled  the  people  to  quick  action. 
The  harbor  of  Charleston  had  three  forts  be 
longing  to  the  United  States,  which  guarded  its 
entrance,  and  one  of  which  commanded  the  city 
itself.  Thus  the  Government  had  the  place 
padlocked;  could  it  be  made  to  deliver  up  the 
key  peaceably?  Or  could  it  be  hoodwinked  till 
the  Secessionists  were  ready  to  grasp  the  prize? 


378  THE  TEN  YEARS1    WAR  —  PART  II. 

That  was  the  problem  which  the  administration 
of  Buchanan  had  to  face,  rendered  doubly  diffi 
cult  by  the  President's  cataleptic  terror  at  every 
appearance  of  the  goblin  called  Coercion,  which 
the  South  Carolinians  and  other  Southerners  did 
not  fail  to  dance  before  his  eyes  in  season  juul 
out  of  season,  for  the  purpose  of  paralyzing  him 
with  fright. 

Every  step  in  the  swift  movement  toward  sep 
aration  at  Charleston  was  made  the  occasion  of 
festivity  and  rejoicing.  But  there  was  also  the 
counterstroke  in  the  secret  throbbing  of  fear  lest 
the  negroes,  that  silent  majority  both  in  the  city 
and  in  the  State,  might  rise  and  baptize  the  new 
born  infant,  Secession,  in  the  blood  of  its  par 
ents.  To  be  sure,  there  was  small  cause  for 
such  fear;  the  blacks  under  far  more  favorable 
opportunities  during  the  War,  never  revolted. 
Still  the  terror  existed  just  the  same,  and  became 
the  hidden  Nemesis  avenging  the  enslaved  in  the 
very  soul  of  the  white  master,  when  there  was 
not  and  could  not  be  any  external  vengeance  (see 
preceding,  pp.  316-8).  So  the  record  conies 
down  to  us  that  Charleston,  always  patrolled  by 
a  guard  as  a  security  against  its  negroes,  feels 
secret  thrills  of  anxiety  during  these  days  in  the 
midst  of  its  wildest  exultation  over  the  new  dawn 
of  the  empire  of  slavery. 

The  Convention  which  passed  the  ordinance 
of  Secession  is  declared  to  have  been  composed 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE   TIIIUD  ALIGNMENT.      379 

of  gray-haired  men  of  the  highest  standing 
socially  and  intellectually,  not  of  hot-headed 
youths  quick  to  precipitate  revolution.  What  is 
the  meaning  of  this  fact?  To  us  it  says  that 
Secession  is  nothing  new  with  South  Carolina 
but  very  old  in  idea,  nothing  sudden  but  long 
since  deliberated,  in  fact  transmitted  through 
generations.  Indeed  these  old  men  have  in 
herited  from  their  fathers  the  hate  of  the  Union, 
the  belief  that  it  is  the  curse  which  is  dragging 
down  their  State,  and  which  the  long-expected 
opportunity  has  now  come  to  smite  to  the  dust. 
As  soon  as  the  ordinance  had  passed,  the  enthu 
siasm  was  boundless,  people  embraced  and  some 
times  wept,  amid  the  universal  exclamation: 
Thank  God,  deliverance  has  come  to  us  at  last. 
One  of  the  peculiarities  of  this  political  jubilee 
was  the  religious  strand  which  wound  through 
it  everywhere.  Not  only  were  the  sessions  of 
the  Convention  opened  with  prayer,  but  public 
meetings,  pole-raisings  and  flag-unfurlings  began 
by  invoking  the  blessing  of  God.  Probably 
nowhere  in  the  North  outside  of  Oberlin  was 
there  such  an  incessant  outpour  of  divine  suppli 
cation  in  secular  concerns.  The  minister  would 
declare  in  substance  that  God  is  on  our  side. 
With  equal  fervor  Oberlin  sent  up  its  petition  to 
the  same  God,  feeling  sure  that  He  was  on  its  side, 
which  was  certainly  opposite  to  that  of  Charles 
ton.  Or  shall  we  again  in  our  American  Iliad 


380  THE  TEX  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

help  ourselves  out  with  old  Homer's  concep 
tion  of  two  Gods  or  more,  antagonistic, 
one  taking  part  with  the  Greeks  and 
the  other  with  the  Trojans,  each  getting 
ready  to  join  battle  on  Olympus?  In  this  con 
nection  it  should  not  fail  to  be  noted  that 
Charleston  like  Oberlin  had  its  Higher  Law  too, 
which  defied  the  Enacted  Law.  The  crew  of 
the  slave-ship  Echo  were  tried  at  Charleston  in 
1858,  for  violating  theL^nited  States  Law  against 
the  slave-trade,  and,  though  caught  in  the  act, 
were  set  free  by  a  Charleston  jury.  Such  a  Law 
being  contrary  to  the  sentiment  of  the  State, 
could  not  be  executed  in  South  Carolina,  said 
her  conscientious  United  States  Senator.  The 
same  sentiment  seems  to  have  existed  in  all  the 
Cotton  States.  So  we  behold  two  Higher  Laws, 
a  Northern  and  a  Southern,  the  one  refusing 
obedience  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  the  other 
refusing  obedience  to  the  Law  against  the  slave- 
trade.  Douglas  estimated  that  in  one  year 
fifteen  thousand  Africans  had  been  smuggled  into 
the  country  in  violation  of  Law,  which  number 
was  much  greater  than  that  of  the  runaway 
slaves  in  the  same  time.  Very  impressive  and 
deep-seated  has  become  the  dualism  between 
North  and  South :  two  Eligher  Laws  yet  just 
opposite,  the  one  pouring  more  negroes  into 
slavery,  the  other  dragging  them  out ;  yea  two 
Gods,  bitter  enemies  both  and  getting  ready  to 


CHAPTER  HI.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     8*1 

clutch  each  other  in  a  far  mightier  war  than  that 
old  Olympian  one  over  Greece  and  Troy.  As 
the  Statehood  in  our  American  Union  is  getting 
cleft  in  twain,  so  is  the  Godhood  conceived  to  be 
which  is  presiding  over  it;  whereby  the  dual 
ism  of  the  Nation  has  reached  its  most  intense 
contradiction,  being  carried  up  by  both  sides  to 
the  judgment  seat  of  the  Almighty  Himself  for 
adjudication.  How  will  He  decide?  That  isnot 
yet  to  be  told ;  gladly  would  each  set  of  peti 
tioners  hear  the  decree  now;  but  the  Supreme 
Tribunal  of  the  Ages  is  not  in  a  hurry  to  render 
its  decision  in  such  an  important  trial,  at  least  not 
till  there  be  the  great  new  compliance  with  the 
Divine  Law  by  both  sides,  Law  at  present  hardly 
visible  and  certainly  not  realizable. 

(6).  Passing  to  Washington  the  center,  .we 
find  that  the  Administration  is  being  harried  far 
more  by  the  South  than  it  ever  harried  Kansas. 
Charleston  is  avenging  Lawrence,  the  Southern 
ers  are  bringing  home  to  the  President  the  re 
taliation  of  the  Free-State  men.  Those  whom 
Buchanan  has  served  most  faithfully  have  be 
come  his  punishers.  The  Executive  at  Wash 
ington  is  no  longer  the  active  cause  of  irritation, 
but  its  agonized  recipient,  no  longer  the  torturer 
but  the  tortured,  and  that  too  by  those  in  whose 
interest  he  inflicted  torture  upon  his  own  section. 
He  was  declared  during  these  days  to  be  in  a 
pitiable  plight,  "spending  his  time  between 


382  THI-:  TEN  YEAU&   WAR.  —  PAllT  //. 

praying  and  crying."  Yet  his  contemporaries 
had  little  pity  for  him,  and  posterity  up  to  date 
is  quite  as  unrelenting  in  its  judgment  of  him, 
even  if  not  in  its  feeling 

After  the  election  of  Lincoln,  Buchanan  spent 
his  first  two  months  in  subserviency  to  the  South, 
yielding  to  its  demands  as  he  had  done  for  four 
years.  No  reinforcements  were  sent  to  Charles 
ton  Harbor,  though  Major  Anderson,  the  com 
mander,  called  for  them,  and  General  Scott  at 
first  had  urged  the  same  view.  Nothing  was 
done,  though  every  day  brought  news  of  the 
activity  of  the  secessionists.  Congress  met  in 
December,  and  the  President  sent  his  usual 
message,  not  only  -a  weak  but  contradictory  doc 
ument.  He  denied  the  right  of  Secession,  yet 
at  the  same  time  denied  the  right  of  Coercion. 

o 

The  Government  cannot  rightfully  put  down  a 
wrong  against  its  own  existence,  but  must  in 
peace  let  itself  be  destroyed  wrongfully.  Such  a 
doctrine  of  non-resistance  was  never  before  ap 
plied  to  any  State  ancient  or  modern  by  its  own 
ruler.  Buchanan  even  called  Secession  revolu 
tionary,  but  our  American  Government  cannot 
meet  revolution,  having  no  right  to  assert  its 
right,  and  would  do  the  greatest  wrong  if  it 
dared  suppress  the  greatest  wrong.  So  spoke 
the  Executive  Power  of  a  great  Nation ;  after 
such  an  exhibition  there  can  be  no  wonder  that 
contempt  has  been  Buchanan's  lot  from  North 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.      383 

and  South.  The  message,  however,  shows  the 
two  contending  sides  in  the  cabinet,  the  one 
maintaining  the  right  of  Secession  and  the  wrong 
of  Coercion,  the  other  maintaining  the  wrong 
of  Secession  and  the  right  of  Coercion,  or  at 
least  of  what  the  South  called  Coercion.  Buch 
anan  seemed  to  have  clapped  the  two  negatives 
together,  giving  a  specimen  of  his  method  of 
reconciliation,  by  denying  the  right  of  both 
Secession  and  Coercion. 

Still  Buchanan  has  his  place  in  the  grand  his 
toric  evolution  of  the  Ten  Years'  War.  We  are 
to  see  that  the  World-Spirit  used  him,  even  in 
his  weakness,  as  its  instrument  to  bring  about 
its  purpose.  Suppose  he  had  been  a  strong, 
firm,  clear-headed  man,  he  might  at  least  have 
deferred  the  conflict.  Andrew  Jackson  would 
probably  have  nipped  Secession  in  the  bud  at 
Charleston  by  filling  Castle  Pinckney  with  regu 
lars  whose  guns  would  have  swept  the  city,  and 
by  manning  fully  the  other  two  forts.  But 
could  even  he  have  permanently  ended  Seces 
sion  in  1860,  as  he  did  Nullification  in  1832? 
Not  at  all.  The  conflict  had  to  take  place,  the 
question  had  to  be  settled  whether  this  Union 
shall  henceforth  produce  Slave-States  or  Free- 
States.  The  starting-point  might  have  been 
elsewhere,  the  time  might  have  been  a  little 
later,  but  not  much,  the  agony  might  not  have 
lasted  so  long  or  even  have  lasted  longer,  with 


384  THE   TEX  XEARtf    \YAlt.  —  1'AUT  H. 

less  or  more  bloodshed ;  but  what  boots  it  to 
speculate  about  incidentals?  The  essential  ele 
ment  is  the  World-Spirit,  which  controls  all 
these  external  events  in  Time  and  Place,  mould 
ing  them  obedient  to  its  purpose  which  is  to 
make  the  Union  productive  of  Free-States,  not 
simply  out  of  the  Territories  but  even  out  of  the 
Slave-States  new  and  old.  Given  the  Oligarchy 
with  its  domination  through  the  extension  of 
slavery,  given  the  North  with  its  conviction 
against  the  extension  of  slavery,  the  appeal  to 
arms  cannot  be  obviated. 

Buchanan,  then,  through  his  imbecility  pre 
pares  the  way  for  Secession  at  a  given  moment 
in  a  given  locality,  yielding  like  putty  in  the 
hands  of  the  Secessionists  for  about  two  months, 
the  last  of  the  year  1860.  But  we  are  to  see 
that  both  he  and  they,  quite  unconsciously,  are 
in  the  clutch  of  a  mightier  Power  which  is  using 
them  for  its  end.  Or,  if  our  American  Iliad 
might  once  more  call  up  that  Olympian  world  of 
the  Greek  bard,  we  should  again  see  and  hear 
Zeus  in  the  council  of  the  Gods  uttering  his 
decree  prefiguring  the  outcome  of  our  Ten  Years' 
War,  though  bringing  woes  unnumbere.d  both 
to  the  victors  and  vanquished. 

Meanwhile  during  these  two  truckling  months 
^November  and  December),  the  cabinet  of 
Buchanan  showed  signs  of  separation  and  seces 
sion.  Early  in  November,  Black,  then  Attorney- 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     385 

General,  advised  the  President  to  send  strong  re 
inforcements  to  the  forts  in  Charleston  Harbor. 
Cass  supported  the  same  view,  which  was  opposed 
by  Cobb  and  Thompson.  Thus  the  division  of 
North  and  South,  of  Coercion  and  Secession,  has 
split  in  twain  Buchanan's  advisers.  December 
8th,  Cobb  leaves  the  cabinet  —  secedes  we  may 
say,  since  Buchanan  in  his  message  to  Congress 
had  denied  the  right  of  Secession.  Three  days 
later  Cass  resolves  to  quit,  since  Buchanan  in 
that  same  message  had  denied  the  right  of  Co 
ercion,  and  had  refused  assistance  to  the  forts  at 
Charleston.  Whereupon  Black  becomes  Secre 
tary  of  State,  and  begins  to  get  his  grip  upon  the 
rudder  of  the  helplessly  drifting  ship.  But  the 
pivotal  event  came  when  Major  Anderson  secretly 
removed  his  troops  from  the  indefensible  Fort 
Moultrie  to  Fort  Sumter  well  protected  against 
attack  (Dec.  26).  South  Carolina  felt  itself  com 
pletely  thwarted  by  the  move,  and  all  the  South 
ern  secessionists,  at  Washington,  blazing  with  in 
dignation,  pitched  poor  Buchanan,  their  wretched 
tool,  into  a  fiery  furnace  during  this  holiday  week 
of  1860.  Certainly  the  Furies  were  serving  up  to 
him  quite  a  little  bit  of  his  own  Inferno. 

The  great  struggle  now  is,  will  the  President 
order  Major  Anderson  back  to  Fort  Moultrie? 
To  force  him  to  such  an  act,  the  whole  Southern 
pressure  is  whelmed  upon  him  at  once,  But  the 
counteracting  power  has  now  come  to  the  front 

25 


386  THE  TUX  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

in  the  cabinet.  Daring  this  same  holiday  week 
Joseph  Holt  is  made  Secretary  of  War,  while 
Edwin  M.  Stanton  has  already  succeeded  Black 
as  Attorney-General.  Thus  the  strong  Union 
Trio  appears,  Black,  Stanton  and  Holt,  the  re 
deeming  glory  of  Buchanan's  entire  administra 
tion.  The  course  of  Major  Anderson  is  approved 
and  he  is  to  be  reinforced.  A  new  hope  for  the 
Union  dawns,  and  the  country  begins  to  look  up 
from  its  night  of  despair,  the  darkest  in  its 
history. 

But  Buchanan  is  no  longer  really  President, 
being  reduced  to  the  figure-head  which  he  in  fact 
is.  A  strong  Triumvirate  has  taken  his  place 
with  his  consent  and  governs  in  his  name,  yet 
with  a  wholly  different  spirit.  Two  months 
more  this  kind  of  rule  is  to  last,  till  he  steps  out ; 
but  during  these  two  months  a  new  whirl  of 
events  rises  to  the  surface  on  the  maelstrom. 

(c.)  Ere  we  pass  on,  however,  we  must  take 
a  glance  at  the  North,  the  third  element  in  this 
movement,  along  with  South  Carolina  and  the 
Administration  at  Washington.  Its  people  read 
the  news  from  the  South  and  the  Capital  in  an 
ever-increasing  state  of  painful  suspense,  and 
the  gloom  kept  thickening  from  early  November 
till  the  holidays.  It  saw  but  too  plainly  the  total 
imbecility  of  the  President  in  the  face  of  the 
coming  danger,  and  trembled  lest  the  govern 
ment  would  simply  go  to  pieces  without  any 


CHAPTER  III  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.      387 

attempt  to  bold  it  together.  The  cabal  of  seces 
sionists  in  the  cabinet  controlled  him  till  they 
seceded,  and  let  the  Triumvirate  come  into  power 
when  a  new  policy  began  to  cheer  the  depressed 
Unionists. 

And  now  we  are  to  consider  the  various  atti 
tudes  which  Northern  leaders  began  to  assume 
toward  Secession.  Undoubtedly  the  people  of 
the  North  were  at  first  taken  aback  that  the 
Southern  menace,  so  long  flourished  over  their 
heads,  should  be  carried  out  in  the  deed.  They 
listened  eagerly  to  their  guides  in  their  puzzled 
state  of  mind,  and  the  first  result  was  that  they 
were  more  puzzled  than  ever  on  account  of  the 
diversity  of  the  advice,  and  the  lack  of  firmness 
in  the  advisers. 

First  we  may  cite  the  opinion  of  Greeley,  who 
proposed  in  his  Tribune  to  let  the  erring  sisters 
depart  in  peace.  He  took  strong  ground  against 
Coercion  early  in  November,  when  South  Caro 
lina  and  the  Cotton  States  were  preparing  to 
secede.  '«  We  shall  resist  all  coercive  meas 
ures,"  he  says  in  his  paper.  That  is,  Greeley 
was  a  passive  secessionist,  a  man  after  James 
Buchanan's  own  heart,  and  if  he  had  had  any  con 
sistency  he  would  have  supported  the  President. 
Still  we  must  not  be  too  severe  upon  poor  Greeley. 
He  was  a  journalist,  editor  of  a  daily  newspaper, 
which  often  has  to  adjust  itself  anew  every 
twenty -four  hours.  When  the  time  comes  he 


388  THE  TEN  YE  Alt  &    WAE.  —  VAltT  II, 

will  make  a  turii  in  the  other  direction.  This 
does  not  necessarily  proceed  from  corruption 
(though  it  may),  nor  exactly  from  fickleness,  but 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  journalistic  con 
sciousness,  which  Greeley  possessed,  through 
training  and  instinct,  more  completely  than  any 
other  man  in  America. 

Greeley  took  his  first  adjustment  from  New 
England,  toward  which  he  always  faced  at  the 
start,  being  a  New  Englander  himself.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  a  large  element  in  that  section  was 
willing  to  see  the  Slave-States  secede.  The  Gar- 
risonians  of  course  rejoiced,  since  they  were  dis- 
unionists  from  the  beginning.  But  the  New 
England  preacher,  the  chief  influence  in  every 
community,  seemed  to  lean  in  the  same  direction. 
The  greatest  one  of  this  class  that  ever  lived  was 
now  in  the  meridian  of  his  influence  and  trans 
cendent  powers.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  openly 
exulted  in  the  separation  of  the  Free-States  from 
the  Slave-States.  It  must  be  confessed  that  New 
England  leaders  had  little  idea  of  or  feeling  for 
the  Union.  Their  moral  sense  was  very  strong, 
but  one-sided;  their  institutional  sense  was  very 
weak,  even  if  not  wholly  lost.  For  if  Secession 
be  admitted  as  a  principle  what  is  to  become  of 
the  North,  even  if  we  leave  out  the  South?  It 
too  will  go  to  pieces,  dissolve  into  its  constituent 
elements  or  States  extending  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific.  The  dissolution  of  the  Union 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     389 

means  logically  not  merely  separation  of  the 
North  and  South,  but  universal  separation,  in  the 
North  as  well  as  in  the  South.  This  thought 
pervades  many  statements  of  Lincoln  (see,  for 
example,  his  Inauguration  Address).  New  Eng 
land,  therefore,  needs  an  institutional  regenera 
tion;  the  original  home  of  outspoken  Secession 
and  of  the  menace,  it  still  holds  to  passive  Seces 
sion  ,  and  proclaims  the  same  during  these  two 
months  so  deeply  separative.  But  we  must  not 
forget  that  it  will  quickly  change  this  attitude  at 
the  call  of  Lincoln. 

Passing  from  New  England  to  New  York  we 
find  a  different  atmosphere  and  observe  a  differ 
ent  principle  at  work.  The  great  word  here  is 
Compromise.  To  be  sure  the  same  word  with 
its  conception  was  frequent  in  Boston  and  else 
where  in  New  England.  But  the  commercial 
spirit  of  New  York  was  terrified  at  the  loss  of 
Southern  trade.  The  Republicans  became  aston 
ishingly  weak-backed,  and  were  getting  ready  to 
crouch  down  under  the  South.  Thurlow  Weed, 
friend  of  Seward  and  editor  of  the  Albany  Even 
ing  Journal,  proposed  a  compromise  which  was 
in  substance  a  surrender  of  the  main  plank  of  the 
Republican  platform,  that  in  regard  to  slavery  in 
the  Territories.  Other  leading  Republican  news 
papers  supported  such  a  compromise.  Seward 
was  silent,  but  probably  favored  it  till  he  heard 
from  Lincoln  through  Weed,  who  visited  the 


390  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

President-elect  at  Springfield.  Crittenden  of 
Kentucky  on  December  18th  introduced  into  the 
Senate  his  famous  compromise  measure,  whose 
chief  clause  likewise  sacrificed  the  distinctive  re 
sult  of  the  Republican  victory  of  1860. 

Now  comes  Lincoln  to  the  rescue.  In  a  letter 
of  December  llth  he  says:  Entertain  no  propo 
sition  for  a  compromise  in  regard  to  slavery. 
In  consequence  Seward  gets  some  backbone,  the 
New  York  newspapers,  like  the  Times,  stiffen 
up,  and  even  Greeley  begins  to  change  from  a 
passive  secessionist  to  an  active  unionist.  Lin 
coln  has  started  to  transform  the  Eastern  States, 
one  of  his  chief  tasks  at  present.  As  he  made 
them  Republican  in  1858,  turning  them  from 
Popular  Sovereignty,  so  he  has  to  make  them 
true  Unionists  in  1860,  turning  them  from  their 
tendency  to  compromise  away  the  main  purport 
of  their  victory. 

All  can  now  see  that  Lincoln  in  this  matter 
was  the  true  representative  of  his  party,  and 
voiced  aright  its  world-historical  mission.  The 
old  Free-States,  with  their  present  leaning 
toward  compromise  and  even  separation,  this 
Western  man  had  to  hold  to  their  new  duty.  It  is 
true  that  the  Republicans  began  to  stand  aghast 
at  the  consequences  of  their  victory.  They  had 
thought  that  the  threats  of  the  South  were  only 
bluster.  But  when  South  Carolina  was  certain 
to  secede,  and  then  actually  went  out,  the  vast 


CHAPTER  ILL  —  THE  TRIED  ALIGNMENT.      391 

coming    task  began    to  rise    on  their  minds  — 

o  o 

nothing  less  than  to  meet  these  acts  with  arms. 
For  there  was  no  question  that  Lincoln  had  been 
fairly  and  constitutionally  elected.  The  North 
had  submitted  to  Buchanan;  now  the  South 
ought  to  submit  to  Lincoln.  The  North  began 
to  feel  it  a  point  of  honor  to  defend  their  prize. 

Still  there  was  enough  in  the  outlook  to  cause 
hesitation.  The  large  vote  for  Douglas  in  the 
Presidential  election  showed  a  divided  North ;  it 
must  first  be  united  before  any  decided  action 
could  be  taken  looking  toward  armed  mainte 
nance  of  the  Union,  or  Coercion  as  it  was  called. 
Another  division  in  the  North  had  begun  to  make 
its  appearance,  that  between  the  East  and  the 
West. 

But  South  Carolina  has  started  the  blaze  which 
rages  furiously.  Already  that  Commonwealth  is 
getting  a  lesson  that  it  is  not  a  Social  Whole 
within  itself ;  trade  has  ceased,  banks  have  stopped 
payment,  the  question  of  the  necessaries  of  life 
has  risen  at  Charleston.  This  one  State  finds 
itself  not  self-sufficing,  and  so  seeks  to  involve 
other  States,  which  may  have  collected  like 
materials  for  a  political  conflagration.  Will  it 
escape  its  own  fire-brands?  From  these  days  of 
early  1861  we  cannot  help  looking  forward  to  the 
same  days  of  1865,  when  Sherman  with  his 
"  horde  of  Vandals,"  quite  unresisted  and  irre 
sistible,  breaks  into  the  State  from  the  south 


392  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

and  mows  a  wide  swath  of  desolation  through  its 
whole  length  ;  Charleston  burns,  Columbia  burns, 
and  the  Nemesis  of  History  celebrates  one  of  her 
most  striking  festivals  of  retribution.  Or  shall 
we  interpret  this  return  of  the  deed  to  the  doer 
as  a  mere  accident  of  war?  Or  that  the  line  of 
retaliation  has  by  no  means  yet  come  to  an  end, 
that  the  turn  of  South  Carolina  is  still  to  rise  up 
in  some  future  whirl  of  the  cycle  of  the  World's 
History? 

At  any  rate  it  is  manifest  that  South  Carolina 
is  bringing  about  just  the  opposite  of  what  she 
intends  —  Coercion,  the  destruction  of  Slavery 
and  the  Primacy  of  the  Union.  She  is  in  the 
hands  of  a  mightier  Power  than  herself,  a  Power 
which  uses  her  as  its  instrument  in  spite  of  her 
self;  her  effort,  her  wealth,  her  passion  and 
her  blood  are  poured  out  in  a  cause  which  she 
thinks  her  own,  but  wThich  destroys  every  object 
which  she  holds  dear  and  has  sought  to  realize. 
To  herself  she  is  tragic  enough ;  to  the  World- 
Spirit  she  is  comic,  pursuing  an  end  which  is 
absurd,  nugatory,  self-annihilating;  while  try 
ing  most  to  be  just  herself  and  nobody  else,  she 
is  strangely  metamorphosed  into  the  opposite  of 
herself,  and  is  all  the  time  undoing  what  she  is 
furiously  bent  upon  doing. 

Such  is,  indeed,  the  bloody  sport  of  the  World- 
Spirit  not  only  in  South  Carolina  but  elsewhere, 
yea  in  the  whole  movement  of  history.  The 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.      393 

question  seriously  comes  up :  Cannot  a  stop  be 
put  to  it  by  the  institutions  of  man  now  dawn 
ing?  We  believe  so;  but  let  this  matter  be  at 
present  deferred,  for  the  case  of  South  Carolina 
has  become  contagious  and  is  passing  to  other 
States  of  the  South,  which  are  all  destined  to 
catch  that  same  madness  of  undoing  the  very 
work  which  they  are  tn7ing  hardest  to  do,  of 
destroying  the  very  things  which  they  make  the 
most  heroic  sacrifices  to  preserve. 

Accordingly  we  pass  not  merely  to  another 
State  but  to  a  whole  belt  of  States  which  madly 
start  to  dancing  the  same  Devil's  dance  to  the 
tune  set  to  playing  at  Charleston. 

2.  Secession  of  the  Lower  .  Tier  of  Slave- 
States.  These  with  South  Carolina  are  usually 
called  the  Cotton  States,  after  their  one  great 
staple,  Cotton,  which  has  become  not  only  an 
aristocrat  but  a  monarch  in  the  realm  of  South 
ern  production,  and  seems  to  be  moulding  in  the 
same  direction  the  character  of  its  producers. 
Moreover  these  States  are  all  marine  States, 
with  their  chief  commercial  cities  lying  on  the 
sea  and  with  their  people  cultivating  separate 
river-valleys  which  run  down  into  salt  water. 
Thus  each  State  of  Cottonia  has  its  own  connec 
tion  with  the  rest  of  the  world  through  the 
Oceanic  highway,  and  is  separative  and  inde 
pendent  by  its  physical  character.  Here  it  may 
be  said  that  Geography  not  only  favors  but 


394  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PAR T  II, 

cultivates  Division,  Separation,  Disunion. 
Very  different  are  the  geographic  situation  and 
character  of  the  States  of  the  vast  Missis 
sippi  Valley  of  the  North,  being  interlinked  by 
many  rivers  debouching  into  one  great  Eiver, 
which  fact  not  only  suggests  but  produces  unity 
and  Union  in  the  hearts  of  the  inhabitants  as 
well  as  in  their  outer  lives.  Along  that  seaboard 

O 

it  may  be  said  that  Nature  herself  contains  a 
streak  of  Secession,  and  develops  strongly  the 
individuality  of  the  separate  State.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  North  Atlantic  States,  as  their 
history  shows.  At  this  point  too  we  may  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  grand  totality  of  the  Ten  Years 
War:  that  Western  people  of  the  great  River 
Valley  must  first  sweep  down  it  and  clear  it  of 
disunion,  and  then  must  pass  to  these  separative 
States  of  the  Atlantic  coast  and  transform  them 
into  a  new  Union,  which  transformation  will 
embrace  not  only  the  old  Slave-States,  but  also 
the  old  Free-States,  regenerating  the  Old-Thirteen 
from  top  to  bottom. 

We  have,  then,  come  to  the  second  Secession, 
continuing  that  of  South  Carolina,  which  is  on 
fire  and  communicates  its  flames  to  the  entire  Tier 
of  inflammable  Cotton  States,  from  Georgia  to 
Texas.  The  whole  Southern  sky  of  the  United 
States  seems  ablaze,  one  State  after  another  tak 
ing  fire  in  the  month  of  January,  1861.  More 
over  the  separation  begins  to  get  organic,  the 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     395 

seceded  States  soon  form  a  Confederacy  and 
adopt  a  Constitution,  electing  a  President  (Jef 
ferson  Davis)  and  a  Vice-President  (A.  H. 
Stephens ) . 

We  must  note  too  that  while  the  example  of 
South  Carolina  is  followed,  there  is  a  decided 
counter-current  of  reaction  against  her,  a  fear  of 
her  precipitancy,  and  possibly  a  touch  of  jealousy. 
Charleston,  so  active  and  so  deserving,  one  would 
think,  is  not  chosen  as  the  seat  of  the  new  govern 
ment;  military  control  is  at  once  taken  from 
South  Carolina  and  handed  over  to  Beauregard ; 
the  Confederate  Congress  hastens  to  re-enact 
the  tariff  of  1857,  South  Carolina's  great  bug 
aboo,  and  one  chief  reason  of  her  Secession, 
though  she  now  votes  for  it;  President  and 
Vice-President  are  not  of  her  citizens.  Her 
leadership  in  her  own  movement  is  discredited 
and  taken  away,  and  she  feels  a  restraining  grip 
upon  what  she  has  hitherto  called  her  freedom, 
that  is,  her  boundless  caprice.  Such  is  her  first 
lesson  in  the  Confederacy. 

But  what  made  this  Tier  of  States  running 
westward  along  the  saltwater  border  follow  her 
in  such  haste  without  waiting  for  their  more 
Northern  sisters  in  slavery's  domain?  Infatu 
ated  with  cotton,  and  inebriated  with  the  domi 
nation  which  they  thought  it  gave  not  only  over 
the  North,  but  over  Europe,  yea,  over  the  world. 
Listen  to  one  of  their  more  temperate  Senators 


396          THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

(Hammond),  who  taKes  this  modest  view:  "I 
firmly  believe  that  the  slaveholding  South  is  now 
the  controlling  power  of  the  world,  that  no  other 
power  would  face  us  in  hostility."  But  whence 
comes  this  terrestrial  omnipotence?  Cotton 
chiefly,  with  our  other  staples,  "  commands  the 
world,  and  we  have  sense  enough  to  know  it," 
and  what  is  more,  we  propose  "  to  carry  it  out 
successfully."  Evidently  a  world-empire  hov 
ered  entrancingly  before  the  imaginations  of  the 
ardent  Southerners  in  these  exciting  days.  They 
conceive  that  they  have  cornered  not  merely 
the  North  but  the  whole  Earth  if  not  the  Uni 
verse  itself,  winning  their  absolute  supremacy, 
not  through  armies'  but  through  cotton,  which 
net  man  alone  but  God  Himself  needs  for  get 
ting  along.  If  moderate,  quite  prosaic,  grave 
men  of  affairs  could  take  such  flights  into  the 
Elysian  fields  of  uncontrolled  domination,  what 
highly  colored  pictures  would  not  be  drawn  by 
the  mighty  gasconaders  of  the  South,  gifted  with 
a  romantic  idealizing  power  and  luxuriating  in  a 
semi-tropical  poetic  efflorescence  of  speech?  An 
orator  like  Wigfall,  who  was  the  devoted  spokes 
man  of  cotton  in  its  native  States  at  this  time, 
found  always  a  strong  response  in  the  people, 
and  is  still  instructive  for  this  reason,  as  well  as 
amusing. 

Time  has  proved  that  there  never  was  a  greater 
delusion.     But  did 'all  the  people    even    of  the 


CHAPTER  III.  -  THE  TIIIED  ALIGNMENT.      397 

Cotton  States,  share  it?  Perhaps  not;  one  is 
inclined  to  some  doubt  in  the  matter.  But  the 
Oligarchy  as  a  whole  did  think  and  talk  thus, 
being  the  victims  of  their  ruling  passion,  the 
love  of  domination.  Value  of  the  cotton  export 
76  millions;  value  of  all  other  exports  60  mill 
ions;  these  are  the  figures  which  set  on  fire  the 
Southern  imagination  and  made  the  Oligarchy 
see  universal  empire,  having  already  the  peculiar 
psychological  aptitude  for  taking  such  a  view. 
Beally,  however,  the  South  was  dependent  on 
external  production  for  supplying  many  of  its 
commonest  wants ;  it  was  far  less  self-sufficing 
than  the  North,  having  almost  no  system  of 
diversified  industries. 

Accordingly  in  the  month  of  January,  1861, 
the  row  of  the  most  Southern  Slave-States  — 
Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and 
Louisiana  —  pass  ordinances  of  Secession,  Texas 
following  them  early  in  February.  All  of  them 
are  salt-water  States,  with  separate  rivers  cutting 
them  up  and  pouring  down  into  the  sea,  a  geo 
graphical  stamp  of  Disunion.  In  the  course  of 
several  months  they  succeed  in  dragging  after 
them  two  fresh-water  States  (Tennessee  and 
Arkansas),  not  without  much  protest  and  diffi 
culty  . 

(a.)  When  the  act  of  Secession  was  accom 
plished,  the  Cotton  States  came  together  to  or 
ganize  a  provisional  Government  and  to  adopt  a 


398  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.—  PA  LIT  II. 

Constitution.  In  four  days  after  the  meeting  of 
their  Congress,  the  Constitution  was  ready  and 
was  accepted.  The  next  day  the  President 
(Davis)  and  the  Vice-President  Stephens  were 
chosen  (Feb.  9th). 

The  Constitution  forbade  the  slave-trade, 
which  was  such  an  act  of  self-denial  on  the  part 
of  the  Cotton  States,  that  the  motive  is  always 
looked  for.  It  was  certainly  not  on  account  of 
moral  scruples,  and  we  believe,  not  out  of  regard 
for  the  opinion  of  Civilization,  as  is  often  stated, 
which  had  been  already  defied.  The  prohibition 
of  the  slave-trade  was  meant  for  the  more  North 
ern  Slave-States,  and  particularly  for  Virginia, 
which  as  slave-breeder  for  Cottonia  enjoyed  a 
considerable  annual  revenue.  Hence  the  excep 
tion  in  the  Constitution:  «'  the  importation  of 
negroes  from  any  foreign  country,  other  than 
the  slave-holding  States  and  Territories  of  the 
United  States,  is  forbidden."  Still  such  a  favor 
may  not  always  continue:  hence  "Congress 
shall  have  power  to  prohibit  the  introduction  of 
slaves  from  any  State  not  a  member  of  this 
Confederacy."  This  is  clearly  an  admonition  if 
not  a  threat  to  the  other  delaying  Slave-States. 
Also  there  is  in  it  a  rebuff  to  South  Carolinians 
and  other  extremists,  who  always  maintained 
that  each  State  should  regulate  the  slave-trade 
and  not  the  Constitution.  Jefferson  Davis  had 
also  proclaimed  the  same  doctrine. 


CHAPTER  III.  -  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.      399 

Another  point  emphasized  is  in  the  Preamble : 
"  We  the  People  of  the  Confederate  States,  each 
/State  acting  in  its  sovereign  and  independent 
character,in  order  to  form  a  per  mane  ui  federal 
government,"  is  the  Southern  view  of  the  old 
Constitution  with  the  assertion  of  State  sover 
eignty,  and  with  consequent  right  of  Secession. 
Moreover  the  same  Preamble  introduces  the  word 
God,  the  lack  of  which  had  so  often  made  the 
old  Constitution  a  subject  of  reproach,  in  the 
phrase  "  invoking  the  favor  of  Almighty  God." 
The  President  was  elected  for  six  years  and  could 
not  succeed  himself.  It  is  also  significant  that 
the  word  delegated  was  substituted  for  the  word 
granted  in  the  first  section  of  the  Constitution, 
which  speaks  of  the  "  powers  herein  granted." 

More  fully  than  in  the  old  Constitution  the 
genesis  of  the  new  State  is  recognized  as 
a  fundamental  function.  "  The  Confederate 
States  may  acquire  new  Territory"  out  of  which 
new  States  can  be  formed.  "  In  all  such  Terri 
tory  the  institution  of  negro  slavery,  as  it  now 
exists  in  the  Confederate  States,  shall  be  recog 
nized  and  protected  by  Congress  and  by  the 
Territorial  Government."  So  the  new  federa 
tion  is  also  State-producing,  but  Slave-State  pro 
ducing.  And  the  admission  of  the  new  State  is 
so  hedged  about  that  it  had  to  be  a  Slave-State 
to  get  admitted.  The  Confederacy  thus  is  Slave- 
State  producing  only ;  it  is  no  longer  double  and 


400  THE  TEN  YEAR&  WAE.—PAETII. 

so  has  fulfilled  on  its  side  Lincoln's  prophecy : 
"  This  Government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free,  it  will  become  all  one 
thing  or  all  the  other." 

In  looking  back  at  this  movement  of  sable 
Cottonia  and  her  leaders,  an  impartial  judgment 
must  affirm  that  there  was  not  a  single  far-seeing 
statesman  among  them.  Their  party  had  both 
Houses  of  Congress  in  the  old  Union,  with  every 
chance  of  a  reaction  in  their  favor.  They  held  the 
Supreme  Court  in  a  firmer  grip  than  ever,  since 
Judge  Curtis-  had  resigned  and  Clifford  had  taken 
his  place.  The  slaveholders  could  not  by  any 
enactment  of  Congress  be  excluded  from  the 
Territories.  In  substance  they  had  quite  all 
that  they  asked,  with  the  two  branches  of  Gov 
ernment,  legislative  and  judicial,  in  their  hands. 
But  the  executive  authority  was  not  theirs,  and 
that  was  just  the  pinch.  So  every  leading  South 
ern  statesman  makes  himself  an  actor  in  that 
colossal  tragi-comedy  of  the  World's  History  in 
which  the  South  is  led  to  root  out  and  destroy 
with  all  speed  that  which  she  most  sought  to 
preserve. 

Hence  rises  the  question :  What  could  have 
been  the  motive?  In  looking  into  the  psychol 
ogy  of  this  matter  we  must  seek  for  some  hid 
den  spring  of  action,  often  un uttered  and  in 
deed  unconscious,  yet  the  deepest  and  most 
powerful.  As  just  stated,  the  South  really  had 


CHAPTKft  III.  -  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     401 

all  that  it  asked  for,  still  there  was  something 
which  it  did  not  ask  for,  but  which  it  wanted 
more  than  anything  else  —  rule,  authority  dom 
ination.  The  love  of  slavery  was  not  its  deepest 
love,  nor  even  the  love  of  State  sovereignty. 
It  must  have  control  of  a  nation,  if  not  of  the 
whole  United  States,  then  of  its  Southern  half. 
Jefferson  Davis  never  mentioned  slavery  in  his 
inaugural.  His  wife  reports  him  saying  just 
before  the  War:  "  In  any  case  I  think  our  slave 
property  will  be  eventually  lost."  This  seems 
to  mean  that  in  his  opinion  slavery  would  perish 
even  if  the  South  should  win  her  independence. 
Thus  Davis  went  into  Secession  openly  for  the 
sake  of  slavery  but  secretly  with  another  motive. 
Many  of  the  leaders  were  quite  like  him  in  this 
respect.  Hence  when  outvoted  in  the  Nation, 
they  flew  into  revolt  under  the  pretext  of 
"  danger  to  our  peculiar  institution,  slavery./' 
but  really  because  they,  though  the  minority, 
would  not,  indeed  could  not  give  up  national 
rule.  Some  of  them,  like  Davis,  foresaw  that 
slavery  was  likely  to  perish  in  the  appeal  to 
arms,  but  did  not  expect  to  lose  independence 
too.  But  they  lost  the  whole  stake,  and  by  their 
course  annihilated  the  very  thing  they  went 
after.  Sad  and  tragic  enough  on  its  individual 
side  is  the  drama ;  but  to  the  eye  of  the  World- 
Spirit  these  passionate  leaders  are  comic  char- 

26 


THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR,  —  PART  II. 

acters   rushing  with  vengeance  to  saw  off  from 
the  tree  the  limb  on  which  they  are  standing. 

(5.)  The  Administration  at  Washington  is  still 
the  irritated  object,  which  this  second  Secession 
in  the  South  is  worrying.  The  action  of  the 
Cotton  States  is,  however,  now  met  by  a  decided 
counter-action  of  the  Cabinet  with  its  Triumvirate 
in  control.  Its  power  is  still  further  secured  by 
the  appointment  of  John  A.  Dix  as  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  (Jan.  llth).  Dix  is  best  remem 
bered  for  his  stirring  order  which  thrilled  the 
North  and  expressed  the  new  will  in  the  Cabinet : 
"  If  any  man  attempts  to  haul  down  the  Ameri 
can  flag,  shoot  him  on  the  spot"  —  an  order 
said  to  have  been  sent  without  the  knowledge  of 
President  Buchanan,  who  is  now  really  sup 
planted  by  men  whose  function  it  is  to  tide  over 
the  remaining  two  months  till  the  advent  of  Lin 
coln.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  all  these 
strong  members  of  the  Cabinet  have  had  also  a 
striking  and  rapid  evolution  of  their  own.  They 
all  had  been  devoted  followers  of  Buchanan,  up 
holders  of  the  Kansas  policy  and  of  the  Dred 
Scott  decision,  and  supporters  of  Breckinridge. 
They  seem  to  have  gotten  their  eyes  open  in 
these  two  mouths,  and  to  have  first  seen  the 
Southern  tendency  toward  Disunion.  Of  course 
they  were  Union  men  to  the  core,  and  had  to 
undergo  a  great  inner  experience  before  taking 
the  present  attitude.  And  they  forecast  what 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT,     403 

attitude  the  majority  of  their  party  will  take  in 
the  approaching  struggle. 

One  of  the  results  of  the  new  policy  of  the 
Triumvirate  was  the  sending  of  the  steamer  Star 
of  the  West  with  soldiers  and  provisions  for  Fort 
Sumter.  When  the*  vessel  entered  Charleston 
harbor,  she  was  fired  at  by  a  masked  battery  on 
Morris  Island.  Her  officers  thought  it  dangerous 
to  proceed,  as  she  was  unarmed,  and  they 
backed  her  out,  no  signal  from  Sumter  having 
been  displayed.  Still  Anderson  saw  the  ap 
proaching  steamer,  and  after  getting  ready  did 
not  fire.  The  whole  business  was  badly  man 
aged,  but  in  view  of  the  time  and  situation,  the 
bungling  was  a  part  of  the  higher  control.  Not 
yet,  not  yet,  says  the  World-Spirit  in  its  way  of 
talking.  South  Carolina  is  indeed  on  fire ;  but 
can  we  not  confine  the  flame  to  it  alone?  By  no 
means,  is  the  decree ;  whatever  is  inflammable, 
must  now  take  fire  and  burn,  till  it  burn  itself 
out  and  the  ground  be  made  clear  for  a  new 
order. 

Anderson  in  a  note  to  Governor  Pickens  de 
clared  the  shooting  at  the  Star  of  the  West  to 
be  "  an  act  of  war."  This  it  was,  the  first  act, 
still  there  was  no  uprising  after  it,  both  sides 
lapsed  into  their  former  quiescence.  The  time 
was  not  yet  ready.  The  Administration  of 
Buchanan  was  not  the  chosen  means  for  carrying 
on  the  war.  The  new  man  must  be  at  the  helm. 


404  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART II. 

And  the  North  was  not  jet  ready,  not  yet  quite 
convinced  that  Secession  would  propagate  itself 
outside  of  South  Carolina.  But  the  events  of 
this  month  will  convince  it  and  compel  it  to 
make  up  its  mind.  Meanwhile  a  kind  of  truce 
prevails,  during  which  the  Peace  Convention 
blows  several  iridescent  bubbles,  which,  how 
ever,  explode  of  themselves,  and  various  schemes 
of  Compromise  are  cunningly  devised  and  float 
for  a  brief  moment  before  the  People,  but  find 
no  permanent  lodgment. 

(c.)  What  of  the  North  in  these  two  months? 
Though  Compromise  be  still  at  work,  the  chief 
one,  that  of  Crittenden,  is  killed  by  the  senatorial 
vote  of  January  15th,  which  means  that  no  Com 
promise  is  necessary.  Indeed  the  nature  of 
these  Compromises,  which  signify  that  the  people 
of  the  North  must  somehow  recall  their  Presi 
dential  vote  of  1860  and  even  apologize  for  it, 
is  getting  to  be  plainly  perceived. 

Moreover,  a  distinct  division  begins  to  appear 
between  the  two  great  parts  of  the  North  —  the 
East  and  the  West,  the  old  Free  States,  and  the 
new  Free  States.  The  West  headed  by  its 
Leader  who  is  the  new  President  is  ready  to  say 
that  there  can  be  no  Compromise  on  the  essen 
tial  matter.  Also  there  must  bo  Coercion  in  the 
right  sense  —  the  holding  of  the  forts,  the  keep 
ing  of  national  property  and  the  collecting  of 
revenue. 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     405 

And  now  the  curious  fact  comes  to  light  that 
the  Dred  Scott  decision  also  stands  in  the  way  of 
Compromise.  Congress,  according  to  it,  has  no 
power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  any  Territory, 
Northern  or  Southern,  and  cannot  constitutionally 
make  any  law  upon  the  subject.  Any  Compro 
mise  must  therefore  be  in  the  form  of  an  amend 
ment  to  the  Constitution  —  quite  along  and 
uncertain  process  amid  these  hurrying  events 
which  require  immediate  action.  Thus  the 
decision  of  Judge  Taney  became  the  chief 
obstacle  to  the  cause  which  it  was  intended  to 
bolster,  and  finally  rendered  the  Crittenden  Com 
promise  or  any  other  like  it  quite  impracticable. 
Davis  and  Toombs  would  have  accepted  it  with  the 
words  slave  and  slavery  intrenched  in  the  instru 
ment,  as  then  the  boast  that  "  the  word  slave  does 
not  occur  in  the  Constitution,"  would  be  no 
longer  true.  But  the  last  Compromise  with 
slavery  has  been  made,  and  the  decision  of  Judge 
Taney  is  brought  to  further  the  decree  of  a  still 
higher  Tribunal. 

Moreover  slavery  is  showing  itself  more  and 
more  allied  with  the  dissolution  of  the  Union. 
The  result  is  the  Union  begins  to  move  into  the 
foreground  and  to  align  its  supporters,  who  were 
anti-slavery  and  pro-slavery  and  indifferent  to 
slavery.  The  Triumvirate  of  Buchanan's  cabi- 
nate  had  called  forth  powerfully  the  sentiment  of 
Union  in  the  country  among  all  parties.  This  is 
the  salient  fact  of  these  two  months:  the  trend 


406  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART II. 

toward  the  unification  of  the  Union  men  of  every 
sort  in  the  North  and  in  the  Border  Slave-States. 
Moreover  Lincoln  grasps  this  fact  fully  and  will 
harmonize  himself  with  it,  making  it  his  starting- 
point.  It  has  become  clear  that  the  battle  must 
be  fought  primarily  for  the  Union  and  not  against 
Slavery.  Lincoln's  home,  the  North-West  was 
more  for  the  Union  and  less  against  Slavery  than 
the  North-East,  whose  auti-slaveryism  squinted 
toward  disunion,  and  whose  unionism  squinted 
toward  compromise. 

On  the  other  hand  these  two  months  (Jan.  — 
Feb.,  1861)  bring  the  Nation  more  closely  to  the 
verge  of  dissolution  than  any  other  time  in  its 
history.  State  after  State  drops  out,  with  no 
decisive  attempt  to  stop  the  breach  on  the  part  of 
the  Government,  and  no  united  manifestation 
against  it  on  the  part  of  the  People.  Upon  the 
razor's  edge  the  Union  stood  balancing  and  tip 
ping —  will  it  fall?  The  Triumvirate  valiantly 
try  to  stay  the  dissolving  process,  and  succeed  in 
bringing  it  to  a  temporary  halt,  which,  however, 
seems  to  be  but  a  truce,  till  the  new  Administra 
tion  steps  in. 

At  this  lowest  point  of  national  disintegration 
Lincoln  appears  and  takes  hold.  His  advent, 
however,  soon  brings  on  a  new  Secession  and  the 
last.  But  this  is  just  what  calls  forth  the  mighty 
reaction  towards  the  Union,  sweeps  away  all 
Compromise,  and  steels  the  Nation's  heart  to  the 
point  of  Coercion. 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     407 

3.  Secession  of  the  Middle  Tier  of  Slave- 
States. —  This  is  the  third  act  in  the  drama  of 
Secession,  but  it  follows  the  second  act  by  no 
means  so  rapidly  as  the  second  followed  the  first. 
Some  two  months  and  a  half  pass  before  Vir 
ginia  secedes  (April  17th),  trailing  after  her 
North  Carolina,  Tennessee,  and  Arkansas. 
Eleven  States  have  now  gone  out  of  the  Union, 
seven  belonging  to  the  lower  Tier  four  to  the 
middle  Tier.  This  is  the  end  of  the  movement, 
which  dashes  in  vain  against  the  upper  Tier  of 
the  Slave-States  —  Delaware,  Maryland,  Ken 
tucky  and  Missouri,  to  which  four  West  Virginia 
is  soon  to  be  added.  Such  then,  is  the  final 
Alignment  of  States  for  the  Great  War  — 
eighteen  Free-States  and  five  Slave-States  against 
eleven  Slave-States. 

Hitherto  we  have  seen  the  South  as  the  irri 
tant,  the  Prime  Mover.  But  with  the  advent  of 
Lincoln,  a  change  occurs,  the  new  President  takes 
the  initiative.  The  Government  shows  itself  no 
longer  as  passive,  letting  itself  be  assailed.  Not 
only  is  the  doctrine  of  Secession  denied,  but  the 
right  of  Coercion  is  asserted  by  the  Executive 
Power  of  the  land.  It  is  in  this  last  point  that 
Virginia  through  her  Convention  grapples  with 
Lincoln  and  ends  by  turning  secessionist,  carry 
ing  with  her  the  middle  Tier  of  Slave-States. 
She  assumes  to  prescribe  conditions  for  the  con 
tinuance  of  the  Union.  She  puts  up  herself  as 


408  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART II. 

sovereign,  and  will  act  regardless  of  the  compact. 
This  is  the  very  idea  which  is  to  be  taken  out  of 
her  by  war.  Says  she  in  substance  :  Give  up  your 
political  victory  of  1860,  guarantee  us  against 
any  similar  victory,  and  we  will  remain  in  the 
Union. 

Thus  Secession  begins  its  final  realization  with 
the  act  of  Virginia,  having  occupied  four  months 
of  Buchanan,  and  six  weeks  of  Lincoln.  Since 
the  inauguration  of  the  latter,  the  struggle  has 
really  been  between  the  new  President  and  Vir 
ginia.  Which  of  the  two  will  yield?  Neither. 
It  is  true  that  Charleston  continues  fortifying, 
and  the  problem  of  Fort  Sumter  is  pressing ;  also 
the  Southern  Conferacy  with  capital  at  Mont 
gomery  keeps  organizing  and  preparing  for  war. 
But  Virginia  has  grappled  with  Lincoln's  idea  of 
Coercion,  as  declared  in  his  Inaugural  and  pro 
poses  to  make  him  take  it  back. 

Vain  is  the  attempt.  If  Virginia  had  pos 
sessed  a  statesman  like  some  of  her  old  ones, 
statesmen  whose  souls  throbbed  in  harmony  with 
the  movement  of  Civilization  and  communed 
deeply  with  the  World-Spirit,  she  might  have 
been  diverted  from  her  present  tendency.  She 
loves  the  Union  in  her  eminently  respectable, 
formal  way  ;  but  a  new  problem  has  arisen  which 
brings  this  love  to  the  hardest  test.  Which  will 
you  choose,  O  Virginia,  Coercion  or  Disunion? 
For  such  is  the  dilemma  before  you.  The  answer 


CHAP  TEE  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     409 

of  her  Unionist  Convention  sitting  at  Richmond 
is,  Disunion.  Very  well,  spake  a  voice  out  of 
the  future,  you  will  have  to  be  made  over,  even 
your  Unionism  must  be  re-born. 

Thus  Virginia,  attempting  to  stop  the  confla 
gration,  takes  fire  herself,  being  inflammable 
through  her  passion  against  any  Coercion  of  the 
Single-State,  even  when  it  is  smiting  the  bond  of 
the  Union  with  all  its  might.  She  loves  the 
Union  tenderly  as  her  very  child ;  but  when  this 
child  is  lying  at  death's  door,  she  repels  violently 
the  only  means  by  which  its  life  can  be  pre 
served.  With  a  sincere  but  strangely  contradic 
tory  utterance  she  declares :  Not  that  I  love  the 
Union  less  but  I  hate  Coercion  more,  and  I  am 
going  to  follow  not  rny  love  but  my  hate.  I 
have  made  my  choice :  Disunion  without  Co 
ercion  I  take  to  my  bosom  and  fling  away  the 
Union  with  Coercion. 

And  now  with  a  little  inner  adjustment  we, 
every  one  of  us,  even  the  humblest,  can  hear  the 
voice  of  the  World-Spirit  replying  to  these 
words  of  Virginia  with  a  kind  of  ironical  modula 
tion  in  its  note  peculiar  to  it  when  it  makes  men, 
States,  and  whole  Ages  self -undoing  through 
their  own  deeds:  Yes,  go  on,  Virginia,  you  are 
doing  just  what  I  wish  you  to  do,  and  I  need 
your  help.  My  whole  aim  and  end  is  to  destroy 
slavery,  to  tear  it  up  by  the  roots  and  to  burn  it 
to  ashes.  But  I  also  wish  to  reconstruct  this  old 


410  THE   TEN  YEARS'    WAR.-  PAET  Jl. 

Union  so  uncertain  of  itself,  actually  not  know 
ing  whether  it  is  on  top  or  underneath  any  re 
fractory  member  of  its  household.  Follow  me 
and  revolt;  do  not  take  up  with  Lincoln's  Ad 
ministration  and  yield  to  your  petty  emotion  for 
the  Union;  refuse  to  be  placated,  and  force  the 
fight  upon  the  unwilling  and  perchance  cowardly 
North.  Then  you  are  mine  wholly,  and  I  can  do 
my  will  with  you  as  I  may. 

Virginia  listens  in  a  kind  of  delusive  dream, 
not  unlike  that  of  Agamemnon  before  Troy 
when  he  had  a  lying  vision  which  Zeus  sent  him, 
since  he  was  internally  ready  and  even  calling  fen- 
it,  that  he  was  going  to  capture  the  Trojan  city 
at  once.  So  Virginia  dreams  Disunion  inoider 
to  be  completely  brought  back  into  a  new-born 
Union;  she  rejects  Coercion  and  so  has  to  be 
coerced  tremendously  by  the  decree  of  the  Gods; 
she  battles  for  slavery  but  bravely  bayonets  it 
to  death,  her  weapon  being  strangely  turned 
around  and  thrust  into  the  heart  of  what  she 
is  fighting  to  save. 

In  this  way  we  may  cast  a  fleeting  glance  for 
ward  upon  the  coining  conclusion. 

But  now  returning  from  this  outlook  we  shall 
watch  the  wrestle  between  Virginia  and  Lincoln, 
a  kind  of  gladiatorial  combat  between  a  man 
and  State,  or  rather  between  their  respective 
ideas.  Such  is  properly  the  first  conflict  of  the 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     411 

incoming  President,  still  peaceful  but  preluding 
the  shock  of  armies. 

(a)  On  the  4th  of  March,  1861,  a  great 
change  takes  place  at  the  capital  city  of  the  land, 
Washington  —  a  change  we  may  call  it  of  Prime 
Movers,  of  the  central  directive  agency  of  the 
government  of  the  Union.  Hitherto  the  South 
ern  mind  has  been  the  controlling  political  power 
since  the  Constitution  first  set  the  machinery  in 
motion,  some  seventy  years  before;  but  hence 
forth  the  North,  under  its  chosen  leader  with  its 
ruling  idea,  is  to  direct  the  destiny  of  the  Nation. 
Accordingly  this  new  Prime  Mover  in  the  per 
son  of  its  chief  representative,  mounts  the  plat 
form  in  front  of  the  Capitol  and  voices  its  pur 
pose  not  only  to  the  assembled  multitude,  but  to 
all  futurity,  in  a  Presidential  inaugural. 

It  is  now  generally  acknowledged  that  Lincoln 
rose  equal  to  the  occasion.  The  Primacy  of  the 
Union  is  the  ruling  idea  of  the  address,  though 
he  does  not  elaborate  this  idea  upon  the  disputed 
point  of  how  it  shall  be  interpreted  in  its  details. 
He  declares  that  the  Constitution  and  the  Laws 
will  be  his  guide,  and  that  he  will  execute  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law.  Yet  he  fully  recognizes  the 
moral  wrong  of  Slavery  as  the  real  cause  of  the 
whole  trouble:  "  One  section  believes  slavery  is 
right  and  ought  to  be  extended,  and  the  other 
believes  it  wrong  and  ought  not  to  be  extended." 

o  o 

He  denies  the  right  of  Secession  :    "  the  Union  is 


412  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.— TAUT II. 

perpetual."  He  asserts  the  right  of  Coercion 
in  its  just  limits:  he  will  "hold,  occupy  and 
possess  the  property  and  places  belonging  to  tho 
Government,  and  collect  the  duties  and  imposts." 
Then  the  Law  of  Conscience  must  submit  in  the 
matter  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  to  the  Con 
stitution,  and  bide  its  time.  That  is  Lincoln  as 
we  have  already  known  him.  Moreover  the 
decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  can  be  reversed 
by  the  People,  though  it  is  "  binding  in  any 
case  upon  parties  to  a  suit,"  till  it  be  re 
versed.  Likewise  " the  central  idea  of  Seces 
sion  is  anarchy,"  logically  ending  in  the  dis 
solution  of  all  government.  Nor  does  he  fail 
to  strike  deep  when  he  says  that  "the  rule  of 
the  minority  is  wholly  inadmissible,"  since 
"  they  make  a  precedent,  which  will  in  turn 
divide  and  ruin  them,"  and  hence  are  self- 
undoing.  State  caprice  is  unconstitutional :  "no 
State,  upon  its  own  mere  motion,  can  lawfully 
get  out  of  the  Union,"  and  thus  break  up  the 
same.  "  I  consider  that  in  view  of  the  Consti 
tution  and  Laws,  the  Union  is  unbroken,"  in  spite 
of  all  acts  of  Secession,  and  "  I  shall  take  care 
that  the  laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully  executed 
in  all  the  States,"  in  spite  of  the  doctrine  against 
Coercion.  Gently  but  firmly,  with  hand  of  iron 
in  a  glove  of  velvet,  does  the  new  President  as 
sert  the  Primacy  of  the  Union. 

At  once  the  helm  of  State  feels  the  fresh  firm 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     413 

grip  of  the  Inaugural  of  Lincoln,  who  now 
begins  his  brief  and  only  period  of  peace  during 
his  entire  magistracy.  A  little  more  than  a 
month  it  lasted,  and  he,  in  feeling  the  most 
peaceful  of  men,  was  destined  to  prosecute  to 
the  bitter  end  one  of  the  bloodiest  wars  in 
History.  Very  clearly  do  we  hear  the  note  of  the 
new  Prime  Mover  in  contrast  with  Buchanan's 
last  four  months,  or  even  with  his  whole  admin 
istration.  The  old  dualistic  Union,  half-slave 
and  half-free,  is  coming  to  an  end  through  its  own 
inner  self -negating  contradiction,  and  its  last  and 
most  vacillating  President,  the  very  embodi 
ment  of  it  put  at  the  head  of  Government,  has 
stepped  out  of  the  White  House  into  private 
life. 

But  now  a  new  scene  of  the  drama  rises :  a 
State,  the  oldest  State  of  all,  will  try  to  wrest 
the  place  of  Prime  Mover  from  Lincoln  and  the 
North,  seeking  to  be  this  herself,  and  at  the 
same  time  whirling  rapidly  toward  a  denial  of  the 
Primacy  of  the  Union,  which  culminates  in 
her  Secession. 

(6)  Virginia,  hitherto  somewhat  in  the  back 
ground,  now  steps  to  the  front  and  becomes  the 
main  pivot  of  rebellion.  She  has  to  decide  the 
momentous  question  whether  she  will  secede 
and  go  with  the  South,  or  cling  to  the  Union. 
Events  have  brought  her  to  the  position  of 
being  the  center  of  the  Secession  movement. 


414  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAIL  —  PART II. 

If  she  does  not  come  to  its  support,  it  will  col 
lapse;  if  she  does,  it  will  take  a  new  lease  of  life. 
The  Southern  Confederacy  is  wooing  her  with 
every  sort  of  blandishment,  not  sparing  threats; 
but  she  holds  back  and  refuses  to  go  out  on  the 
inauguration  of  Lincoln.  Four  weeks  after  it 
(April  4th)  her  Convention  votes  down  an  ordi 
nance  of  Secession  by  89  to  45. 

Still  it  refuses  to  dissolve  and  send  its  mem 
bers  home.  Why?  She  believes  in  the  Union, 
but  will  resist  Coercion  in  the  Lincoln  sense. 
Secession  is  wrong  or  at  least  impolitic,  still  the 
Government  cannot  put  it  down.  Here  lay  the 
grand  fatality  in  the  Virginia  consciousness ;  we 
may  deem  it  her  tragic  guilt  for  which  she  is  to 
suffer  more  than  any  other  State.  At  least  this 
is  the  political  idea  which  is  to  be  washed  out  of 
her  soul  with  the  blood  of  her  own  children. 
Nay,  the  contradiction  will  rend  her  Statehood 
itself  atwain,  and  transmit  her  cleavage  to  the 
future  in  two  Virginias. 

During  the  month  of  March  the  issue  becomes 
settled  clearly  and  definitely  between  Lincoln  and 
Virginia.  He  holds  to  the  Primacy  of  the  Union 
and  says  so  in  his  Inaugural.  Virginia  on  the 
contrary  maintains  the  Primacy  of  the  Single- 
State.  Lincoln  was  a  grandson  of  Virginia  and 
sought  to  treat  her  with  the  greatest  regard, 
lie  waited  for  the  Convention  to  dissolve,  but  it 
would  not;  he  even  summoned  its  leading  union- 


Off  AFTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     415 

1st,  Summers,  to  Washington  for  consultation, 
but  he  would  not  come,  though  he  sent  a  substi 
tute  who  made  a  bad  impression.  Lincoln  now 
saw  that  this  Virginia  Convention  of  Unionists 
were  also  employing  the  Southern  menace :  Do 
so  and  so  or  we'll  secede;  above  all  no  Coercion 
of  seceded  States.  Thus  Virginia,  just  in  her 
manifestation  of  Unionism,  assumesto  be  dictator 
over  the  Union,  and  to  prescribe  to  the  consti 
tutionally  elected  President  what  he  must  do 
not  only  in  her  case  but  also  in  regard  to  the 
South  generally.  Here  is  Lincoln's  summary  of 
the  matter  clinched  with  a  striking  metaphor: 
"  Your  Convention  in  Richmond  has  been  sitting 
nearly  two  months,  and  all  they  have  done  is  to 
shake  the  rod  over  my  head."  Is  not  this  the 
very  disease,  the  grand  Southern  malady,  which 
Lincoln  has  been  called  to  eradicate?  So  the 
Virginia  Unionists  are  going  to  dominate  the 
Union  audits  President,  or  become  Disunionists. 
Certainly  theirs  is  not  the  Primacy  of  the  Union, 
out  of  which  they  will  soon  be  driven  by  their 
own  logic  as  well  as  by  passion. 

It  has  become  plain  that  such  Unionism  must 
be  transformed,  after  being  smelted  in  the  fiery 
furnace  of  war.  Lincoln  has  to  give  up  Vir 
ginia  and  with  her  the  middle  Tier  of  Slave- 
States.  That  Convention  of  her  Unionists  has 
struggled  fqr  four  weeks  to  make  him  eat  the 
words  of  his  Inaugural  which  affirmed  the  Pri- 


416  THE  TEN  YEARS*    WAR. —  PART  II. 

macy  of  the  Union.  He  has  not  done  it,  is  not 
going  to  do  it,  and  so  the  appeal  to  force  nec 
essarily  results.  Thus  Virginia  will  not  accept 
majority  rule  in  the  Nation,  and  is  getting  ready 
to  assail  the  Union  as  Free-State  producing, 
whereby  she  makes  herself  the  chief  means  of 
bringing  this  principle  down  upon  her  own  head 
with  a  bloody  thwack,  and  of  becoming  a  Free- 
State  herself.  This  outcome  she  ought  to  have 
foreseen,  but  she  no  longer  produces  statesmen 
with  foresight. 

Really  the  Convention  of  Unionists  has  put 
their  State  and  themselves  into  the  power  of  the 
Secessionists.  Their  attitude  gets  to  be  more 
and  more  that  of  the  menace:  if  you,  O  Lincoln, 
dare  lift  your  finger  to  coerce  South  Carolina, 
out  we  shall  go  at  once.  Can  Charleston  have  a 
more  pressing  invitation  to  open  fire  on  Sumter? 
The  fact  is  a  Virginia  secessionist  of  the  first 
water  now  rushes  down  to  that  city  and  makes  a 
speech  to  its  people :  *'  I  will  tell  your  Governor 
what  will  put  Virginia  in  the  Southern  Confed 
eracy  in  less  than  an  hour  by  the  Shrewsbury 
clock.  Strike  a  blow!  '  For  if  you  strike  a 
blow,  Lincoln  will  be  forced  to  eat  his  Inaugural 
(which  he  will  not),  or  strike  back,  and  this 
will  be  Coercion,  against  which  even  Virginia 
Unionism  has  staked  its  existence.  Strike  a 
blow  is  the  talismanic  utterance  of  the  crisis, 
expressed  at  the  right  moment  by  Roger  A. 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     417 

Pry  or  of  Virginia.  Though  Major  Anderson 
said  that  in  three  days  he  would  have  to  evacuate 
Sumter,  unless  he  received  in  the  meantime  sup 
plies  or  "  controlling  instructions  from  my 
government,"  the  order  to  fire  was  given  by  four 
aides,  three  South  Carolinians  and  one  Virginian, 
the  mentioned  Pryor,  whose  prophecy  in  refer 
ence  to  his  State  was  at  once  fulfilled. 

Beauregard,  the  commandant  at  Charleston, 
did  not  directly  order  the  act,  nor  did  Jefferson 
Davis,  President  of  the  Confederacy.  They 
both  defended  the  act  after  it  was  done,  but 
both,  if  they  had  been  consulted,  would  prob 
ably  have  waited  till  Major  Anderson's  sup 
plies  were  exhausted,  and  have  permitted  him 
peaceably  to  evacuate  the  fort.  But  South 
Carolina  again  seized  the  initiative,  and  the 
first  blow  of  war  was  struck.  Again  she  per 
formed  her  function  of  precipitating  the  con 
flict,  of  determining  on  what  day  and  in  what 
place  it  should  begin.  But  the  conflict  itself  was 
not  hers  alone,  but  that  of  the  whole  South,  and 
sooner  or  later  had  to  be  fought  out.  Lincoln 
answered  at  once  by  issuing  his  call  for  75,000 
men,  and  the  North  rose  in  a  body.  Of  all  the 
Southern  Statesmen  whose  declarations  have 
come  down  to  us,  Toombs  showed  the  clearest 
foresight  as  well  as  gave  the  best  utterance  in 
regard  to  the  future.  He  was  Secretary  of  State 
in  the  Confederate  Cabinet,  and  at  its  session 

27 


418  THE  TEN  TEAKS'    WAIL  —  PART  II. 

poured  forth  the  following  mightily-worded  pro 
test,  according  to  his  biographer:  "The  firing 
upon  that  fort  will  inaugurate  a  civil  war  greater 
than  any  the  world  has  yet  seen.  *  *  *  At 
this  time  it  is  suicide,  murder,  and  will  lose  us 
every  friend  at  the  North.  You  will  wantonly 
strike  a  hornet's  nest  which  extends  from  moun 
tain  to  ocean,  and  legions  now  quiet  will  swarm 
out  and  sting  us  to  death.  It  is  unnecessary,  it 
puts  us  in  the  wrong,  it  is  fatal."  Just  about 
the  wisest  words  spoken  in  the  South  during 
these  hot  passionate  days :  Toombs,  addicted  at 
times  to  grandiose  bluster  so  tempting  to  the 
Southern  orator  of  this  period,  shows  himself  here 
in  his  best  character,  commingling  a  vein  of  far- 
sighted  prophecy  with  lofty  poetic  expression. 

Since  the  War,  Southern  and  Northern  writers 
have  fought  over  the  filing  on  Sumter,  using 
their  pens  as  weapons,  the  question  being,  was 
this  the  first  blow,  the  first  act  of  open  aggres 
sion?  Davis,  Stephens  and  many  others  of  the 
States-Rights  school  say  No !  that  attack  was 
simply  resistance  to  aggression;  the  attempt  of 
the  United  States  to  provision  its  own  fort  in 
Charleston  Harbor  was  already  an  act  of  aggres 
sion  against  the  sovereign  right  of  the  State  of 
South  Carolina.  The  North  did  not  regard  it  in 
that  light  and  does  not  still.  Of  course,  if  one 
is  hunting  for  grounds  of  quarrel,  each  side  can 
fish  up  a  long  string  of  provocations  from  the 


CII APT  Ell  111.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     419 

beginning  of  the  Government  down.  Still  that 
shell  fired  upon  Sumtcr  at  4  :  30  in  the  morning  of 
April  12th,  1861,  from  a  mortar  of  the  Confed 
erate  Fort  Johnson  was  the  primal  deed  starting 
the  mighty  train  of  blazing  gunpowder  which 
kept  exploding  for  four  years  all  over  the  South. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  the  real 
train,  the  train  of  explosive  ideas,  had  long  been 
laid  throughout  those  Southern  lands,  and  was 
ready  or  soon  would  be  ready  to  be  touched  off 
in  a  thousand  localities  besides  Sumter  and 
Charleston.  The  settlement  had  to  be  made, 
the  first  gun  had  to  be  fired,  if  not  just  now  at 
Fort  Johnson,  then  next  week  or  possibly  next 
year  somewhere  else.  The  World- Spirit  has 
issued  its  decree  for  the  grand  arbitrament  of 
arms  between  two  desperately  contending  princi 
ples;  the  exact  time  and  place  of  the  opening 
struggle  is  a  matter  of  less  consequence,  being 
largely  the  element  of  contingency  in  the  move 
ment  of  History.  The  dualism  of  the  Union  as 
productive  of  Free-States  and  Slave- States  is  to 
come  to  an  end,  but  not  without  a  whirlwind  of 
war  enveloping  the  entire  land.  Who  began  it? 
Well,  who  did?  it  is  going  to  begin  anyhow, 
settle  the  question  as  you  may. 

(c)  The  North  now  becomes  the  Prime  Mover 
m  its  turn,  taking  the  initiative  under  the  lead  of 
Lincoln  and  never  letting  it  drop  till  the  center 
of  all  the  preceding  irritation  has  been  reached 


420         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  IT. 

and  thoroughly  cleansed  of  its  irritating  power 
by  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  its  oligarchical 
rule.  Such  is  the  great  new  step  taken  by  the 
Northern  Folk-Soul,  which  has  hitherto  allowed 
itself  to  be  ruled  by  Southerners,  often  with 
good  reason,  for  they  were  the  best  statesmen. 
The  South  declared  that  it  simply  wished  to 
be  "let  alone" — that  is,  to  be  given  a  free 
hand  in  dissolving  the  Union,  and  in  making 
Slave  States  out  of  Territories.  Undoubtedly 
against  these  proposals  the  new  Administration 
had  to  take  a  positive  stand  or  ignore  the  prin 
ciple  which  called  it  into  being,  ignore  the  voice 
of  the  Age  which  commanded  it  to  make  the 
Union  Free-State  producing,  in  accord  with  the 
vote  of  the  People.  Lincoln,  forbearing  to  the 
last  and  willing  to  yield  in  non-essentials  and 
accidentalities,  never  faltered  in  asserting  the 
essential  point.  It  may  be  truly  said  that  in 
these  days  he  spoke  for  the  Genius  of  Civiliza 
tion,  becoming  the  incarnation  of  the  World- 
Spirit.  Many  suppose  that  the  People  of  the 
North,  in  their  first  disinclination  and  horror  of 
Civil  War,  would  have  voted  for  the  Crittendeu 
Compromise.  But  Lincoln  would  not  let  them 
surrender  their  own  deepest  principle.  And  we 
shall  find  that  his  main  function  was  to  hold  the 
People  to  the  War,  not  through  external  force 
but  through  inner  sympathy,  by  means  of  which 
he  could  always  call  them  back  afresh  to  their 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIED  ALIGNMENT.     421 

long  laborious  task.  The  deepest  strand  of  his 
nature  was  to  keep  in  touch  with  the  Folk-Soul 
and  to  mediate  it  with  the  World-Spirit.  He 
could  not  be  brought  to  compromise  the  Union 
as  Free-State  producing  since  this  was  to  him 
the  plain  decree  of  the  World-Spirit,  and  was 
the  distinctive  thing  which  he  had  to  do.  Thus 
he  became  the  guide,  the  leader,  truly  the  oracle 
of  the  People,  and  was  not  simply  guided  by 
them.  He  knew  that  the  work  must  be  done 
now,  otherwise  it  would  have  to  be  started  again 
under  far  harder  conditions.  He  knew  that  in 
the  school  of  the  Nations  the  schoolmaster  did 
not  spare  the  rod,  and  that  any  faltering  or  pal 
tering  would  not  go  unpunished.  At  the  same 
time  he  would  not  and  could  not  go  faster  than 
the  People,  and  he  would  take  all  along  in  his 
movement — all  who  could  be  persuaded  to  join 
the  flag  of  the  Union.  He  annulled  the  procla 
mations  of  Fremont  and  of  Hunter  till  the  Bor 
der  States  were  ready  to  adopt  his  own  far  more 
sweeping  proclamation  of  the  doom  of  slavery. 
Thus  we  must  grasp  Lincoln  in  his  deepest 
character  as  a  mediator,  mediating  between  the 
World-Spirit  and  the  Folk-Soul,  both  of  which 
he  has  to  know,  following  both  in  a  way,  yet 
controlling  both  to  one  great  harmonious  result. 
It  is  true  that  the  Folk-Soul  had  already  re 
ceived  the  impress  of  the  World-Spirit,  as  this 
book  has  stated  more  than  once ;  still  this 


422          THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

impress  is  as  yet  subjective,  ethical,  not  actual 
ized  in  the  institutions  of  the  land.  To  make  it 
actual  and  institutional  is  the  work  of  the  Hero 
or  Genius —  here  Lincoln,  who  has  to  transform 
into  actuality  the  new  Union  out  of  the  old, 
bringing  into  active  existence  the  Union  as  Free- 
State  producing  henceforth  and  forever. 

Lincoln's  call  for  75,000  to  defend  the  Union, 
met  with    an  immediate  and  overwhelming   re- 

O 

sponse  of  the  People  and  is  the  prototype  of  his 
part  in  the  whole  War.  He  hears  the  voice  of 
the  World-Spirit  commanding  the  nc\v  idea  on 
the  one  side,  and  he  is  also  deeply  communing 
with  the  Folk-Soul  on  the  other.  The  supreme 
question  with  him  is:  Are  the  people  now  ready 
to  execute  the  behest  which  I  hear  from  above? 
If  not,  then  I  must  wait,  and  even  restrain  the 
too  precipitate  spirits,  for  the  whole  people  must 
back  the  World-Spirit  with  their  conviction  and 
will  ere  its  purpose  can  be  realized.  Hence  we 
call  him  the  mediator  between  these  two  some 
what  shadowy  but  very  puissant  entities — the 
World-Spirit  and  the  Folk- Soul,  and  he  in  a 
manner  obeys  while  directing  both  to  the  one 
grand  consummation  —  the  Free-State  which 
generates  Free  States  only.  So  it  comes  that 
Lincoln's  words  Hying  from  the  capital  through 
the  nation  to  its  outermost  borders  and  talking 
to  the  People  are  the  most  significant  utterances 
of  the  time,  and  seem  to  possess  an  Olympian 


CHAPTER  III.  —  THE  THIRD  ALIGNMENT.     423 

power,  as  if  Zeus  the  Supreme  God  were  speak 
ing  and  proclaiming  the  final  judgment  of  the 
Tribunal  of  the  Ages. 

With  the  firing  on  Fort  Sumter  the  sweep 
toward  Disunion  reaches  its  extreme  point ;  our 
federation  in  its  long-continued  deflection  from 
the  central  Sun  of  the  whole  System  has  touched 
its  very  aphelion,  and  the  pending  question  is: 
Shall  it  henceforth  fly  off  into  infinite  space,  each 
member  wandering  after  its  own  fashion  through 
the  future,  or  shall  it  make  or  be  made  to  make 
a  quick  turn  back  toward  the  source  of  light  and 
unity?  Just  at  this  turning-point  stands  the 
form  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  bids  the  hitherto 
victorious  centrifugal  movement  cease,  or  rather 
gives  ita  sudden  whisk  and  whirl,  and  thenbowls  it 
around  toward  the  central  luminary,  out  of  the 
sphere  of  whose  influence  the  entire  System  of 
States  seemed  about  to  rush  into  original  Chaos. 
Such  is  the  gigantic  historical  position  of  the 
man  at  this  moment  when,  in  answer  to  the 
attack  on  Sumter,  he  issues  his  call  to  the  Nation, 
which  gives  a  response  equally  gigantic,  and  gets 
ready  to  march. 

Accordingly  from  the  outermost  limit  of  our 
political  World  the  return  begins,  not  to  stop 
from  that  day  to  the  present.  This  is  now  the 
centripetal  movement,  sweeping  sunwards  till  it 
reaches  its  perihelion,  when  possibly  a  herculean 
effort  of  the  contrary  kind  will  have  to  be  made, 


424          THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

namely  to  keep  this  political  world  of  ours  from 
flying  into  the  all-consuming  sun.  At  present, 
however,  we  are  occupied  not  with  the  future,  but 
with  the  past,  and  are  to  cast  our  look  to  the 
opposite  side  of  our  political  orbit,  and  sharply 
mark  that  turning-point  from  Chaos  back  to 
Cosmos,  from  Disunion  back  to  Union. 

It  is  manifest,  that  the  Second  Part  of  the  Ten 
Years'  War,  which  we  have  named  the  Union 
Disunited  has  passed  its  last  stage  and  wheeled 
about  into  a  new  sweep  moving  in  the  other 
direction,  which  leads  to  the  Union  Re-united. 
This  will  give  a  new  Part,  the  Third,  lasting 
some  four  years  and  filling  the  land  with  the 
clash  of  arms. 


CHAPTER  III,  —  RETROSPECT.  425 


IRetroepect 

The  facts  of  History  may  be  likened  to  an 
army  and  its  organization.  Primarily  it  is  com 
posed  of  individuals,  of  separate  unordered 
atoms,  which  are  similar  to  the  crude  unorgan 
ized  historic  events  of  a  period.  Then  must 
come  their  training  and  multifarious  discipline 
till  they  be  marshalled  into  companies,  battal 
ions,  regiments,  brigades,  divisions,  corps  and 
armies.  Each  has  its  own  leader  and  order, 
even  if  one  fundamental  principle  runs  through 
and  unites  the  whole  multitude  of  men  and  facts. 
But  this  is  not  all.  Over  the  entire  national 
army,  and  over  the  complete  array  of  historic 
events  is  placed  a  Lord  paramount  who  controls 
both  the  Army  and  the  History  of  the  Nation 
unto  his  purpose.  This  Supreme  Lord  we  have 
often  sought  to  glimpse  and  even  to  name,  under 
various  titles,  chief  of  which  is  the  World-Spirit. 
With  Him  it  is  the  main  function  of  written 
History  to  make  the  reader  acquainted;  at  least 
such  is  our  conception  of  the  matter. 

Accordingly  we  are  trying  t©  find  the  inner 
ordering  of  this  vast  multiplicity  of  historic  de 
tails,  on  the  outside  so  elusive  and  evanescent, 
by  arraying  them  in  companies,  regiments, 
brigades  and  the  like,  and  putting  them  all  finally 


42  G  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

under  the  command  of  their  highest  leader,  the 
world-historical  Generalissino  already  mentioned. 
We  repeat  that  there  is  no  attempt  here  to  set 
down  the  fullness  of  the  mere  events  of  History 
as  they  bubble  out  to  the  surface  of  the  Time- 
stream  ;  they  are  not  to  be  left  just  as  they  ex 
ternally  appear  without  their  inner  process.  On 
the  contrary  they  are  to  be  drilled  singly  first, 
then  companied,  regimented,  brigaded  until  they 
can  be  seen  marching  in  the  Grand  Army  of  the 
Supreme  Orderer  of  the  World's  History. 

1.  One  of  the  best  points  at  which  to  observe 
the  incoming  presence  and  authority  of  the 
*  World-Spirit  is  the  equally  firm  belief  of  both 
North  and  South  in  the  rightfulness  of  their  re 
spective  causes.  Conviction  fought  conviction, 
conscience  was  pitted  against  conscience,  and 
in  a  sense  it  was  God  against  God.  Still  one 
side  had  distinctly  the  decision,  of  the  Highest 
Arbiter  in  its  favor.  Who  is  this  Arbiter  above 
both,  delivering  judgment  after  and  through 
conflict?  It  is  the  President  over  all  History, 
governing  it,  and  directing  it  toward  its  en«l 
unto  which  each  important  epoch  is  a  step  or 
stage,  which  can  be  or  ought  to  be  formulated 
when  the  historic  conflict  is  set  down  in  writing. 
Historiography,  then,  is  the  exposition  of  the 
World-Spirit  clothing  itself  in  the  occurrences 
of  Time.  These  occurrences  in  the  present  con 
nection  are  political,  belonging  to  the  State  as 


CHAPTER  III.  —  RETROSPECT.  427 

one  of  the  forms  of  human  association.  Ac 
cordingly  we  seek  to  look  through  these  appear 
ances  called  events,  and  to  behold  what  controls 
them  and  also  unto  what  end  they  are  controlled. 

We  may  likewise  consider  the  two  sides  as  two 
Folk-Souls,  Northern  and  Southern,  into  which 
the  one  national  Folk-Soul  is  split,  having 
evolved  itself  into  a  moral  separation  as  regards 
slavery.  Two  hostile  convictions  we  witness; 
each  is  still  subjective,  in  the  individual,  but  is 
seeking  to  be  objective,  in  the  institution,  and 
thereby  rule  the  land.  Such  are  the  two  con 
testants,  two  Folk-Souls,  each  appealing  now 
to  the  World-Spirit  as  Supreme  Judiciary  of 
History  for  a  favorable  decision. 

2.  The  present  question,  then,  cannot  be  set 
tled  at  the  forum  of  conscience ;  it  is  something 
more  than  a  moral  question.  Both  sides  are 
equally  conscientious,  are  equally  devoted  to 
their  duty  or  what  they  take  to  be  such ;  yet 
they  are  in  complete  opposition  and  antagonism. 
Each  side  thinks  that  it  is  right  and  the  other 
wrong,  and  they  appeal  by  arms  to  the  Supreme 
Arbiter,  called  also  the  God  of  battles. 

His  answer  is  given  in  the  form  of  defeat  and 
victory.  Permanent  defeat  of  a  cause  is  a  nega 
tive  judgment  of  the  Tribunal  of  the  Ages,  ren 
dered  after  due  trial.  The  lost  cause  means  the 
condemned  cause,  condemned  at  the  forum  of 
History,  but  not  necessarily  at  the  forum  of  Con- 


428  THE  TEN  YEAR  &    WAR.  —  PART  II. 

science.  Yet  these  two  grand  adjudicators  of 
Time's  greatest  Causes  must  somehow  be  brought 
into  agreement  at  last,  and  unite  in  rendering- 
judgment. 

Hitherto  in  History  the  final  decision  of  the 
World-Spirit  has  been  through  war — certainly 
an  external  decision.  This  may  be  accepted  by 
the  defeated  side,  perchance  has  to  be  accepted; 
still  it  retains  an  element  of  violence  which  is 
alien  to  victory  itself.  Accordingly  there  is  the 
persistent  search  for  some  mediating  principle 
between  Conscience  and  the  World-Spirit,  which 
may  eliminate  war  and  drive  it  out  of  History, 
which  it  has  heretofore  dominated.  Such  a 
principle  must -be  embodied  in  an  Institution 
which  the  conscientious  individual  has  to  be  con 
tinually  re-making,  that  it  make  him  conscien 
tious.  No  conflict  between  Conscience  and  the 
Constitution,  such  as  we  have  already  seen,  will 
then  be  possible. 

3.  As  we  behold  them  at  present  in  the  North 
and  in  the  South,  one  of  these  warring  Con 
sciences  is  in  harmony  with  the  Genius  of  Civil 
ization,  the  other  is  not.  One  may  be  said  to 
bear  the  impress  of  the  World-Spirit,  the  other 
not.  One  keeps  step  with  the  movement  of  the 
Age,  the  other  runs  counter  and  often  says  so,  with 
a  kind  of  defiance.  Or  call  them  the  two  Folk- 
Souls  into  which  the  soul  of  the  once  whole 
Nation  has  been  rifted:  one  of  them  is  chosen 


CHAPTER  III.  —  RETROSPECT.  429 

to  realize  a  great  stage  of  the  World's  History; 
the  other  is  not  only  not  chosen  but  is  even 
made  to  serve  the  purpose  of  its  opponent. 

This  calls  up  for  notice  the  way  in  which  the 
World-Spirit  deals .  with  the  unchosen,  the  de 
feated  peoples  of  History.  These  are  made  to 
bring  about,  often  through  pouring  out  pro 
fusely  their  own  blood,  the  very  thing  which 
they  have  most  opposed.  In  their  mightiest 
doing  they  are  mightily  undoing  themselves,  and 
thus  seem  to  be  writing  a  comedy  in  their  own 
gore.  As  already  noted  repeatedly,  the  Southern 
States  are  taking  the  very  means  to  destroy  what 
they  seek  to  maintain  and  perpetuate.  The  de 
lusive  dream  of  domination  it  is  which  the  World- 
Spirit  sends  upon  those  whose  cause  is  to  be 
wiped  out  of  History. 

Herewith,  however,  the  voice  of  protest  begins 
to  be  heard  against  this  method.  The  World- 
Spirit  is  put  to  the  question,  and  its  way  of  deal 
ing  with  the  Nations  is  cited  before  a  new 
Tribunal.  It  has  hitherto  appeared  as  Fate, 
external,  arbitrary,  even  if  rational.  The  World- 
Spirit  is  not  now  exempt  from  judgment ;  it  also 
is  to  evolve,  is  to  be  transformed;  in  a  word 
it  is  to  become  institutionalized.  Somehow  it 
must  be  gotten  inside  the  State,  no  longer  re 
maining  outside  and  destroying  the  same. 

4.  It  has  been  repeatedly  declared  that  the 
World-Spirit  has  an  end,  which  it  is  seeking  to 


430  THE  TEN  YEAE&   WAR.  —  PART II. 

realize  in  its  historical  movement.  What  is  that 
end?  Evidently  the  free  man  or  free  humanity, 
each  having  to  attain  its  ever-widening  sphere  of 
freedom  through  institutions,  since  these  not 
only  embody  but  secure  man's  freedom.  It  may 
be  said,  therefore,  that  the  World-Spirit  has  a 
great  interest  in  the  present  American  struggle 
as  it  is  a  very  important  stage  in  the  historic 
progress  of  man  toward  institutional  liberty. 

Though  the  United  States  was  justly  called  a 
free  country  from  the  start,  it  has  reached  a 
point  at  which  it  must  take  a  new  step  toward 
the  goal  of  History.  It  has  run  upon  a  serious 
limit  to  freedom  which  it  must  transcend.  It 
can  no  longer  remain  half-slave  and  half-free, 
and  produce  both  Slave-States  and  Free-States. 
Nor  can  it  longer  rear  slaves  and  freemen  to 
gether.  Such  was  the  behest  of  that  Superior 
Power  over  the  two  Consciences  and  over  the 
two  Folk-Souls,  which  Power  we  have  often 
called  the  World-Spirit. 

This,  in  the  course  of  Universal  History  hith 
erto,  has  appeared  an  outside  power,  outside  of 
the  individual  and  the  State.  Evidently  its 
destiny  is  to  become  inside  the  political  process 
of  Nations,  determining  the  people  still  by  its 
decree  but  also  being  determined  by  them.  In 
other  words  the  Tribunal  of  the  Ages  is  to  be 
instituted  as  a  part  of  popular  Government. 

5.   In  the  very   name  of  World-Spirit  is  indi- 


CHAPTER  III.  -  RETROSPECT.  431 

cated  that  it  is  but  one  form  or  phase  of  Spirit 
as  universal,  or  of  the  Absolute  Spirit.  This  has 
its  manifestation  in  History  as  well  as  in  other 
ways,  such  as  Art,  Science,  Keligion  and  Philos 
ophy.  By  its  very  nature  it  has  to  reveal  itself, 
and  this  self -revelation  in  the  present  ctise  takes 
the  form  of  historic  events  in  Space  and  Time, 
and  under  this  form  it  is  called  the  world-histor 
ical  Spirit,  or  the  World-Spirit  for  short,  which 
in  its  spatial  and  temporal  succession  seeks  after 
universal  freedom,  or  the  freedom  characteristic 
of  the  Universe  as  self-conscious. 

The  World-Spirit  has  as  its  end  the  completely 
free  man  in  a  free  Universe  made  institutional. 
Neither  of  these  freedoms  is  yet  here,  is  yet 
realized,  though  we  have  to  grasp  all  History  as 
the  path-way  leading  to  both. 

6.  History  has  its  counterpart  in  Biography, 
especially  in  political  Biography,  which  shows  us  a 
great  soul  filled  with  the  World-Spirit,  product  of 
it  on  the  one  hand,  yet  producing  it  and  realizing 
it  on  the  other.  The  life  of  the  great  genius  as 
statesman  reveals  the  Nation  moulding  him,  then 
reveals  him  moulding  the  Nation.  He  is  first  to 
become  the  very  Norm  or  Type  of  his  people  and 
their  institutional  world,  then  he  is  to  unfold 
this  Norm,  in  accord  with  its  own  inner  nature, 
into  its  new  historical  stage  as  decreed  by  the 
World-Spirit.  He  is  both  the  child  of  his  age 
and  its  father ;  begotten  by  it,  he  nevertheless 


432  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART II. 

begets  it  in  its  new  birth.  Just  this  process  of 
the  individual  of  his  epoch  Biography  is  to  set 
forth,  when  it  gets  to  performing  its  highest 
function. 

History  (political)  gives  the  evolution  of  Na 
tions  into  the  world-historical  process,  as  they 
appear  going  through  a  long  line  of  rise  and  fall 
in  Space  and  down  Time.  But  the  Nation  has 
to  be  functioned  by  an  individual  or  individuals, 
directing  it  so  as  to  make  it  realize  the  World- 
Spirit  in  its  career.  Thus  we  have  the  salient 
historic  phenomenon  of  a  world-historical  Nation 
and  a  world-historical  Man  uniting  to  produce 
events  which  must  also  be  called  world-historical. 
Now  History  puts  its  stress  upon  the  side  of  the 
Nation  and  its  world-historical  events,  while  the 
Man  is  subordinate,  though  present  and  active. 
But  Biography  puts  its  stress  upon  the  Man,  as 
the  pivotal  agent  who  is  the  mediator  between 
the  Nation  and  the  World-Spirit. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
more  completely  than  any  other  man  represents 
the  epoch  of  the  Ten  Years'  War  in  its  world- 
historical  significance.  Purely  the  product  of 
the  American  People,  and  trained  by  their  in 
stitutions,  he  becomes  in  turn  their  supreme 
trainer  and  leader  to  a  new  institutional  order. 
Step  by  step  he  breathes  into  the  Folk-Soul 
when  ready  the  World-Spirit  giving  its  ultimate 
command  through  his  voice.  With  it  he  com- 


CHA  P  TER  II L  —  BE  TR  OSPE  CT.  483 

munes  till  he  is  schooled  to  speak  its  speech  to 
the  people,  who  feel  the  utterance  as  their  own, 
as  that  of  their  highest  selves,  and  at  once  obey, 
knowing  this,  as  old  Homer  would  say,  to  be  the 
word  of  the  God,  who  appears  and  appears  only 
to  those  who  are  ultimately  ready  to  hear  the 
divine  voice. 

7.  The  great  pivotal  events  of  History  are, 
accordingly,  to  be  seen  and  to  be  portrayed  as 
revealing  three  spiritual  elements  in  gradation. 
Primarily  they  take  place  in  a  given  Nation,  they 
are  national ;  secondly  they  are  also  world-his 
torical,  being  of  the  World-Spirit,  which  is 
above  Nations  yet  embraces  and  rules  them ; 
finally  they  are  to  be  carried  up  to  the  highest 
source,  higher  than  the  World-Spirit,  to  the 
Absolute  Ego  or  Self  (Pampsychosis),  of  which 
they  must  be  seen  to  be  one  form  of  revelation 
in  the  world  of  Space  and  Time.  Thus  the 
events  of  History  are  a  manifestation  of  the 
Universe  as  Self  (pampsychical),  as  well  as 
national  and  world-historical. 

It  has  been  often  recognized  that  History  is  a 
manifestation  of  something  higher  than  itself  as 
a  simple  succession  of  events.  We  have  had 
many  a  Philosophy  of  History,  which  term  at 
least  indicates  that  History  has  its  Philosophy, 
whatever  that  may  be.  But  Philosophy  itself 
with  its  line  of  systems  is  seen  to  be  in  its  turn 
a  manifestation  of  something  lying  beyond  itself, 
.28 


434  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  II. 

of  some  deeper  Discipline  which  is  completely 
self-defining  and  therein  self-revealing.  History 
likewise  must  be  carried  back  to  its  profounder 
sources  in  such  a  Discipline,  which  is  surely 
dawning. 

8.  The  foregoing  are  some  of  the  general 
principles  underlying  this  present  History  in 
common  with  all  History.  Ultimately  we  have 
to  see  the  American  Ten  Years'  War,  taking  its 
place  in  the  grand  march  of  the  supreme  historic 
events  of  the  Nations.  The  spiritual  Totality  of 
History  must  be  viewed  at  last  as  that  which  is 
determinining  each  of  its  Parts.  But  now  we 
shall  pass  to  the  last  sweep  of  the  present  theme. 


PART  THIRD.-THE  UNION  RE-UNITED, 

THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865). 

If  the  previous  Part  Second  had  as  its  leading 
theme  the  Union  Disunited,  and  if  it  kept  mov 
ing  more  and  more  deeply  toward  separation  and 
disintegration  till  the  shot  at  Sumter,  with  the 
call  of  Lincoln  the  current  sets  in  strongly  the 
other  way,  namely  toward  Union,  or  rather 
toward  Re-union  and  Redintegration.  So  it  comes 
that  a  new  fundamental  chord  is  struck  which 
runs  through  and  holds  together  this  Part  Third, 
as  it  moves  with  many  an  up  and  down  slowly 
but  persistently  toward  the  Union  re-united. 

The  statement  may  be  made  here  at  the  start 
that  this  cannot  be  the  old  Union,  or,  in  the 
speech  of  the  time  "  the  Union  as  it  was."  The 
prodigious  travail  of  the  World-Spirit  is  for  a 
new  birth  of  the  Union,  a  veritable  palingenesis 
or  regeneration  of  it  which  will  no  longer  per- 

(435) 


436  THE  TEN  YBAR&   ir/lfl.  —  I'ART  III. 

niit  it  to  remain  half-slave  and  half-free,  pro 
ductive  equally  of  Slave-States  and  Free-States. 
This  is  the  rending  contradiction  which  it  must 
now  slough  off  through  the  fierce  ordeal  of 
bloody  war,  just  about  the  bloodiest  in  the 
World's  History.  That  cleft  Folk-Soul,  whose 
cleavage  has  been  always  getting  wider  and  more 
threatening  through  the  cancerous  growth  of 
slavery,  is  to  undergo  along  and  painful  surgical 
operation  that  the  Nation  be  once  more  healed 
and  whole.  And  the  Northern  conflict  between 
the  two  duties,  the  moral  and  the  constitutional, 
is  to  be  solved  by  getting  rid  not  only  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law,  but  of  the  slave  himself 
seemingly  for  all  time  in  our  country.  Also  the 
Classism  of  the  South  with  its  minority  rule  will 
be  shivered  to  fragments  in  the  earthquake. 
And  the  decision  of  Judge  Taney  meets  with  a 
tremendous  reversal  through  another  and  higher 
Justiciary  who  instead  of  confirming  the  decree 
making  slavery  national  and  universal,  makes  it 
zero.  Thus  arises  a  homogeneous  Union  as  re 
gards  freedom,  having  gotten  rid  of  the  ever 
fighting  dualism  with  which  it  came  into  being. 
The  last  compromise  between  the  two  incompati 
ble  sides  has  been  made,  seeking  to  reconcile 
that  which  is  at  bottom  irreconcilable.  The 
transformation  of  the  Slave-State  into  the  Free 
State  begins,  of  course  with  fierce  resistance  and 
mighty  uproar,  yet  there  is  a  new  harmony  rising 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  437 

out  of  the  clash  of  arms  and  the  thunder  of 
cannon.  The  North,  long  doubtful  and  unwill 
ing,  and  indeed  leaderless,  has  at  last  nerved 
itself  up  to  the  point,  not  of  subjugating  but  of 
assimilating  the  South  by  a  bold  excision  of  the 
one  great  difference  under  the  new  leader  born 
for  just  this  supreme  work. 

Thus  our  Ten  Years'  War  enters  upon  its 
third  and  final  stage,  still  working  at  its  grand 
problem  which  we  have  so  often  emphasized : 
Shall  this  Union  continue  to  be  the  parent  of 
both  Slave-States  and  Free-States,  or  of  Free- 
States  only?  The  problem,  however,  is  assum 
ing  a  new  phase ;  it  is  no  longer  what  it  was  in 
Kansas,  which  sought  to  make  this  one  Territory 
free;  it  is  no  longer  what  it  was  in  the  North, 
whose  purpose  reached  out  to  make  all  Territories 
free.  The  Union  with  its  principle  of  producing 
Free-States  is  now  on  the  march  southward  into 
the  region  of  Slave-States  themselves:  Will  it 
apply  its  principle  to  them  also?  Undoubtedly 
a  principle,  if  it  be  true,  must  show  itself 
universal. 

I.  In  order  to  catch  the  full  sweep  of  the 
Great  War  as  well  as  to  fathom  its  deepest 
meaning,  we  must  see  first  its  geographical 
conditions.  Already  the  latitudinal  division 
(known  as  Mason  and  Dixon's  line)  between 
the  two  opposing  sections  has  often  been  men 
tioned.  But  there  is  likewise  a  longitudinal 


438  THE  TEN  YEARS'  WAR.  —  PART  III. 

division  from  North  to  South,  which  is  quite  us 
important  as  that  from  East  to  West,  though 
it  has  not  been  duly  noticed  by  historians. 
This  division  separates  the  old  States  from  the 
new,  the  Original  States  from  the  Derived,  the 
sea-board  States  from  the  river-valley  States. 
The  Allegheny  mountains  in  general  constitute  the 
dividing-line  drawn  by  Nature  between  these  two 
parts  of  the  country,  and  form  a  physical  limit 
much  more  pronounced  and  obstructive  than  the 
one  running  East  and  West  and  separating  the 
Free-States  from  the  Slave-States.  Let  it  be 
noticed  that  the  principle  of  division  in  each  of 
these  two  cases  is  very  different:  in  the  one  this 
principle  is  freedom  and  slavery,  in  the  other  it 
is  origination  and  derivation. 

Now  these  two  lines  —  North  to  South  and  East 
to  West — may  be  conceived  as  crossing  each 
other  (which  they  actually  do  at  that  peculiar 
piece  of  territory  called  the  Virginia  Pan- handle) 
and  as  dividing  the  entire  country  into  four 
Groups  of  States  which  we  shall  designate  as 
follows : 

(1)  The  East-Northern  Group  of  Slates: 
these  are  the  Free-States  of  the  Original  Thir 
teen,  seven  of  them,  to  which  we  shall  add  the 
two  admitted  subsequently,  Maine  and  Vermont, 
these  being  simply  portions  of  old  States  made 
into  new  ones.  Of  the  mentioned  seven  States 
the  characteristic  upon  which  we  now  are  to  place 


THE  GEE  AT  WAR  (1861-1865).  439 

chief  stress  is  that  they  assisted  in  originating 
the  Union  and  Constitution,  hence  we  shall  often 
call  them  by  way  of  contrast  the  Original  or 
Originative  Free-States.  Though  Rhode  Island 
absented  herself  from  the  Convention  (in  1787), 
she  ratified  the  Constitution  and  became  a  mem 
ber  of  the  primal  Union. 

(  2 )  The  East- Southern  Group  of  States :  these 
are  the  Slave-States  of  the  Original  Thirteen,  six 
of  them  altogether,  and  every  one  directly 
connected  with  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  which  is  also 
the  fact  in  regard  to  the  old  Free-States.  The 
present  group  likewise  took  part  in  forming  the 
Union  and  Constitution.  Four  of  them  will  go 
into  the  rebellion,  the  two  northerly  ones  never 
seceding  (Delaware  and  Maryland). 

The  two  preceding  groups  comprise  the  Old- 
Thirteen,  the  Colonies  which  separated  from 
Great  Britain  during  the  Revolutionary  War, 
won  their  independence,  and  established  the  new 
Government.  They  all  have  the  common  trait 
of  being  parties  to  that  first  Compact,  Covenant, 
Partnership,  Federation  —  whatever  be  the  name 
one  chooses  to  call  it  —  which  made  the  United 
States  or  the  Nation  as  a  Government  distinct 
from  yet  sprung  of  the  Single-States  composing 
it.  In  this  regard  there  is  a  strong  contrast  with 
the  two  following  Groups. 

(3)  The  West-Southern  Group  of  States:  these 
are  the  Slave-States  derived  from  the  Union 


440  THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

made  by  the  Old  Thirteen,  nine  in  number,  three 
Tiers  of  them  running  from  East  to  West. 
Seven  will  secede,  two  refusing.  Children  of 
the  Union  are  these  seceding  New-States,  whose 
territory  in  several  cases  had  been  bought  by  the 
parent  and  defended  in  battle.  This  Group  dis 
tinctly  divides  into  two  sub-Groups,  inner  and 
outer, or  fluvial  and  marine  States  (four  and  five 
respectively).  Passing  northward  we  complete 
the  circle  of  the  States  in  the  following  final 
division. 

(4)  The  West-Northern  Group  of  States: 
these  are  the  Free-States  derived  from  the  Union, 
eight  in  number  (including  Kansas  and  leaving 
out  California  and  Oregon  which  belong  to  the 
Pacific  Group  and  had  little  to  do  with  War 
directly).  These  eight  lie  in  the  Valley  of  the 
Great  River,  and  are  interconnected  both  in 
geography  and  in  spirit.  They  are  the  free 
children  of  the  State-producing  Union,  and  have 
a  peculiarly  strong  attachment  to  their  Mother  as 
the  origin  of  their  freedom,  whom  they  long  to 
liberate  and  make  wholly  Free-State  producing. 

Thus  we  have  two  Groups  of  Derived  States, 
slave  and  free,  as  we  had  of  the  Original  States. 
We  must  note,  however,  that  the  Derived  State 
is  the  equal  of  the  Original  State  under  the 
Constitution,  being  a  full  member  of  the  Union 
and  participating  in  its  State-making  function. 
That  is,  the  originated  State  also  originates 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  441 

States,  having  become  both  originated  and  origi 
nating  through  the  Constitution.  On  the  other 
hand  the  Old-Thirteen  are  simply  the  originating 
States  (hence  their  title  of  original)  having 
originated  Union  and  Constitution.  Let  the 
reader  mark  attentively  this  distinction  between 
the  two  kinds  of  States,  for  it  influences  pro 
foundly  the  entire  movement  of  the  approaching 
War  and  runs  a  line  of  transformation  through 
the  Union  after  the  War.  Here  it  may  be  per 
mitted  to  cast  one  brief  outlook  upon  the  future: 
the  original  (or  originating)  States,  the  whole  of 
them,  North  as  well  as  South,  are  to  be  made 
over  and  to  become  originated  also  as  members 
of  the  new  Union. 

All  four  of  these  Groups,  accordingly,  have 
distinct  characters;  each  has  its  own  decided 
individuality,  being  born  with  a  special  political 
bent.  Four  different  characters,  then,  we  be 
hold,  necessary  products  of  the  different  com 
mingling  of  the  four  political  elements  already 
mentioned :  freedom  and  slavery  on  the  one 
hand,  on  the  other  the  Union-begetting  and  the 
Union-begotten  elements.  Diversely  do  these 
principles  enter  into  and  constitute  the  four  pre 
ceding  Groups,  which  from  the  present  point  of 
view  may  be  looked  at  in  a  kind  of  circle  and 
characterized  as  the  Original  Free-States,  the 
Original  Slave-States,  the  Derived  Slave-States, 
and  the  Derived  Free-States. 


442  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  III. 

II.  And  now  the  question  rises :  Which  of 
these  four  Groups  is  to  take  the  leading,  creative 
victorious  part  in.  the  Great  War  just  at  hand? 
Or,  to  state  the  same  meaning  in  a  different  way  : 
Which  of  them  is  the  chosen  representative  of 
the  World-Spirit  in  the  grand  contest?  Or,  in 
a  still  different  form :  Whose  character  is  to 
rule,  whose  principle  is  to  prevail,  of  the  four? 
Looking  backward,  we  can  definitely  exclude  the 
two  Groups  of  Slave-States  from  the  problem. 
But  there  are  likewise  two  Groups  of  Free- 
States  deeply  participating  in  the  common  con 
test,  each  with  its  own  political  character  and 
principle.  Which  is  to  take  control  and  to  guide 
the  whole  movement,  and  finally  to  realize  its 
own  essential  spirit  in  the  completed  result? 

Already  the  finger  of  History  has  drawn  the 
preliminary  outline  of  the  answer  to  the  forego 
ing  question  in  recording  the  political  struggles 
of  Kansas,  of  Illinois,  and  of  Ohio,  all  of  which 
States  belong  to  the  West-Northern  Group,  and 
have  sounded  the  key-note  of  the  Great  War. 
Moreover  out  of  this  Group  has  risen  the  Leader 
of  the  new  Order,  the  Great  Man  of  the  Epoch, 
who  has  been  selected  to  go  to  the  Capital  of  the 
land,  and  from  that  center  to  control  the  collid 
ing  masses,  and  to  evolve  gradually  out  of  the 
old  Union  the  new  one,  whose  creative  soul  is  to 
be  Free-State  producing  henceforth  and  forever. 

Such  is,  then,  the  round  which  we  have  traced, 


THE  GEE  AT  WAE   (1861-1865).  443 

starting  in  the  North-East,  and  passing  down 
the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  South-East,  thence 
turning  to  the  South-West  and  mounting  up  to 
the  North-West.  It  is  the  grand  cycle  of  the 
States  of  the  Union,  through  which  the  pattrof 
victory  during  the  War  moves,  though  in  a 
reverse  way,  sweeping  from  the  North-West 
Southwards  down  the  Mississippi  Valley,  then 
Eastwards  to  the  Atlantic,  and  then  Northwards. 
This  is  the  geographical  framework  of  the  entire 
conflict  now  to  take  place. 

In  only  one  of  the  preceding  Groups  of  States 
has  the  Union  hitherto  shown  itself  as  Free-State 
producing.  Now  this  is  the  principal  which  is  to 
be  realized  and  made  universal.  The  West-North 
ern  Group  thus  is  the  Norm  or  Type,  after  which 
the  Union  is  now  to  be  patterned.  The  other 
three  Groups  are  to  be  more  or  less  transformed 
in  this  regard,  are  to  be  assimilated  to  the  new 
Norm  of  the  Union.  The  principle  upon  which 
the  War  turns  is  the  genesis  of  the  State,  and 
this  principle  it  is  which  puts  the  American 
struggle  in  line  with  the  greatest  and  deepest 
struggles  of  the  World's  History.  The  genetic 
act  of  a  Nation  must  be  its  most  significant  act 
and  test  of  all  other  acts.  What  kind  of  a 
State  can  it  produce  out  of  itself?  Better  or 
worse  than  it  is?  The  American  Union  as  State- 
producing  has  produced  two  kinds,  Free-States 
and  Slave-States ;  one  is  better  and  one  is  worse 


444         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

than  it  is  itself.  We  speak  the  verdict  of  His 
tory  when  we  say  that  the  Derived  Free  State  is 
better  as  a  political  organization  than  the  Derived 
Slave-State,  yea,  better  than  its  parent  the  Union 
as  begetter  of  States,  half  of  them  slave  and 
half  free.  So  it  comes  that  the  Derived  Group 
of  Free  States  furnishes  in  their  own  deepest 
character  and  origin  the  Prototype  or  Norm 
which  is  to  transform  the  other  three  Groups, 
and  also  the  Union. 

We  have  already  noted  that  Lincoln  had  to 
hold  his  party  to  its  fundamental  principle,  if 
not  to  transform  it  in  the  East-Northern  States. 
In  fact  he  has  done  this  twice :  first  as  to  Popu 
lar  Sovereignty  in  1858,  and  secondly  as  to 
Compromise  in  1861.  The  same  character  he  is 
soon  to  show  upon  a  far  wider  field. 

III.  Nature  has  sharply  engraved  her  lines  of 
difference  upon  the  two  Northern  Groups  of 
Free-States.  The  Eastern  are  marine  States, 
bordering  upon  the  Ocean  and  its  bays ;  each  of 
them  is  thus  connected  separately  with  the  rest 
of  the  world.  Such  a  situation  gives  them  a 
certain  independence,  yea  particularism,  whose 
evils  were  a  prime  motive  for  making  the  Con 
stitution.  Its  rivers  for  the  most  part  flowed 
down  from  the  mountains  in  single  streams  with 
few  affluents  of  any  size,  and  emptied  into  the 
Ocean.  Up  these  detached  river  valleys  the 
people  migrated  and  formed  their  early  settle- 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  445 

mentis,  which  had  their  own  outlet  into  the  great 
World.  Thus  the  Atlantic  States  became  sepa 
rative  by  nature  and  sharply  individualized;  each 
rayed  out  independently  from  the  great  reservoir, 
the  sea,  which  commercially  was  their  main  con 
necting  element.  Such  was  the  physical  basis  of 
the  Old  Thirteen,  Northern  and  Southern,  and 
formed  a  kind  of  mould  for  their  political 
character. 

But  when  we  cross  the  Alleghenies,  a  wholly 
different  prospect,  yes  a  different  world  physio- 
graphically  unrolls  before  our  eyes.  We  enter  a 
series  of  great  river-valleys,  which  unite  and 
form  one  River  Valley  greatest  of  all,  or  rather  it 
is  all  of  them  together.  The  streams,  ever  com 
bining  and  then  re-combining,  constitute  at  last 
a  single  vast  system  of  rivers  which  produce 
finally  the  one  supreme  River,  affectionately 
called  by  its  own  Aboriginal  people  the  Father 
of  Waters.  Truly  Union  is  stamped  upon  the 
very  face  of  this  enormous  territory.  Very 
different  is  the  word  which  the  rivers  and  their 
adjacent  valleys  speak  on  the  Atlantic  coast, 
with  little  or  no  inter-connection. 

In  such  a  land  a  new  kind  of  States  will  arise, 
primarily  by  the  decree  of  nature  herself.  The 
States  springing  up  in  the  River- Valley  exclu 
sively  will  certainly  present  a  contrast  to  those 
springing  up  along  the  Ocean.  The  fluvial 
States,  inter-locked  by  their  navigable  streams 


446  THE   TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  ///. 

into  one  mighty  totality  for  thousands  of  miles 
from  the  Rockies  to  the  Alleghenies,  cannot  be 
a    series    of    uuinterconnected    Commonwealths 
lying   alongside    of    one   another  as    they  mast 
exist  on  the  seaboard;   on  the  contrary  they  will 
form  an  organic  whole  more    completely  devel 
oped    than  is  possible    under  other    conditions. 
The    old    States    have    indeed    established    the 
Union,  but  the  new  States  will  re-establish    it, 
transforming  it  and    even  transforming   the  old 
States  which  made  it.     Note    the  grand  gather 
ing   of  the  Elvers  flowing  in  a  westerly  course 
from    one  line  of  mountains,  and  in  an  easterly 
course    from  the   other  line  of  mountains,    till 
they  all  join  in    the  common    stream  hastening 
southward  to  the  Gulf.     In  the  middle  months 
of  1861  the  people  are  rising  along  these  streams 
and  following  them  down  to  their  junction  with 
the   one  great   River,    along  with   whose  waters 
they  intend  to  sweep  to  the  sea,  in  defense  of  the 
endangered  Union.     The  mustering  of  the  Rivers 
of  the  West-Northern  States  not  only  images  but 
suggests  and  even    urges  the  mustering  of  the 
inhabitants,  beckoning   them  on  to  their  task. 
We  may  also  see  how  the  East-Northern  Free- 
States  could  show  such  readiness  to  compromise 
the  new  Union  won  by  the  Presidential  election 
of  1860  as  something  not  altogether  their  own, 
as   quite  alien  to    their  political  consciousness. 
In  fact  they  were  not  born    of  the  old  Union, 


THE  GREAT  WAE  (1861-1865).  447 

though  they  helped  make  it ;  they  could  not  have 
the  same  affection  for  it  as  the  West-Northern 
States,  since  it  was  not  their  parent,  and  not 
altogether  their  child.  The  true  future  character 
of  the  Union  could  only  be  inherited  by  the  off 
spring. 

So  we  have  to  put  stress  upon  the  mountain 
ous  watershed,  so  strongly  emphasized  by 
Nature,  which  separates  the  Oceanic  from  the 
River- Valley  States,  the  physically  intercon 
nected  from  the  physically  divided  Common 
wealths.  It  is  not  said,  however,  that  these 
physical  characteristics  make  the  new  State, 
which  rather  finds  them  and  is  unfolded  through 
them  from  its  germ  to  its  flowering.  The  seed 
of  the  State  has  to  be  brought  to  the  favoring 
soil,  like  other  seed.  Man  carries  his  institu 
tional  world  with  him  in  his  migrations,  and 
plants  it  first  of  all.  In  a  propitious  environ 
ment  it  will  flourish  and  come  to  its  full  matur 
ity,  otherwise  it  is  likely  to  lag  and  wither,  never 
realizing  what  lay  potentially  in  the  germ. 

Properly,  then,  it  is  Institutions  which  migrate 
and  therein  develop  more  and  more  toward  their 
end  which  is  freedom  actualized.  To  be  sure 
these  Institutions  must  have  reached  a  point  at 
which  they  can  master  and  utilize  both  the 
extent  and  the  configuration  of  the  territory  to 
which  they  have  come.  The  North-American 
Indians,  the  first  occupants,  never  did  and  never 


448          THE  TEX  YEARS'    WAlt.  ^- PART  III. 

could  bring  out  the  significance  of  the  Missis 
sippi  Valley  in  the  World's  History,  which  is 
verily  its  highest  significance,  because  they  had 
not  the  Institutions  to  do  it.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
backwoodsman  took  with  him  not  merely  his 
ax  and  gun,  but  rude  and  uncouth  as  he  was,  he 
bore  in  his  brain  a  new  institutional  order,  and 
therein  was  likewise  the  bearer  of  the  World- 
Spirit,  who  presides  over  the  birth  of  all  great 
epoch-turning  States,  as  they  have  appeared  in 
Time. 

Thus  the  forthcoming  State  or  Union  of  States 
finds  its  physical  counterpart  in  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  its  terrestrial  abode  prefigured  by  Nature's 
own  hand.  This  abode,  as  already  noted,  differs 
decidedly  from  the  Atlantic  home  of  the  old 
Colonies.  The  Earth's  architecture,  erecting 
the  first  edifice  for  man,  is  here  of  another 
style,  and  is  adapted  for  another  guest.  Still 
we  must  not  think  that  Nature  makes  the  State; 
this  we  can  say  just  as  little  as  that  the  State 
makes  Nature.  In  the  present  case  we  can  see 
that  both  have  been  evolving  for  each  other  and 
into  each  other  for  long  historic  and  prehistoric 
aeons.  Moreover,  we  can  also  see  that  both 
were  created  thus  evolving  toward  a  common 
end,  in  which  each,  for  the  present  at  least, 
attains  its  highest  destiny. 

IV.  We  have,  therefore,  to  take  notice  of 
the  physical  contrast  between  the  two  sets  of 


THE  GUEAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  449 

American  States,  those  lying  along  the  Oceas 
and  those  interconnected  in  the  River  Valley. 
But  we  are  also  to  observe  that  this  same  gen 
eral  difference  pervades  the  entire  course  of 
the  World's  History,  from  the  Orient  through 
Europe  to  the  Occident. 

Looking  back  to  the  distant  Past  we  see  Ori 
ental  States  rising  and  flourishing  in  the  great 
River  Valleys,  the  Nile  and  the  Euphrates,  for 
instance.  But  even  when  these  States  bordered 
on  the  Sea  they  obtained  no  mastery  of  it;  their 
civilization  was  fluvial,  not  marine.  Not  till 
Phenicia  is  reached,  does  the  sea  begin  deeply  to 
determine  man's  life  and  history.  Moreover, 
Oriental  government  was  autocratic,  despotic  we 
call  it,  even  if  it  sprang  from  the  consciousness 
of  the  people.  On  the  great  rivers  of  the  East 
the  first  cities  were  built  by  large  bodies  of  men 
associating  and  thus  civilizing  themselves. 

But  when  we  come  to  Europe  we  find  a  strik 
ing  change.  Civilization  moving  along  the  North 
Mediterranean,  takes  possession  successively  of 
three  peninsulas,  Greece,  Italy  and  Spain,  till 
it  reaches  the  Atlantic.  Following  the  Ocean 
northward,  it  becomes  modern  and  then  ad 
vances  eastward  toward  Prussia  and  Russia  of 
to-day,  having  completed  seemingly  the  territo 
rial  circuit  of  Europe.  The  Mediterranean  was 
indeed  the  trainer,  the  teacher  of  the  sea's  con 
quest —  an  instruction  which  the  Orient  did  not 

29 


450          THE  TEN  r/iM#.S"    WAR.  ~  PAUT  III. 

have.  Those  were  Mediterranean  sailors  who 
performed  the  first  great  Oceanic  feats,  the  dis 
covery  of  America,,  the  doubling  of  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope,  and  the  circumnavigation  of  the 
Globe.  Europe's  civilization  did  not  develop  in 
great  Kiver  Valleys  like  that  of  the  Orient.  The 
employment  and  mastery  of  the  Sea  and  Ocean 
play  into  it  from  beginning  to  end.  Rome  was 
indeed  on  the  Tiber  and  London  on  the  Thames, 
but  each  of  these  rivers  sinks  into  insigni 
ficance,  when  the  one  is  compared  in  historic 
value  with  the  Roman's  Mediterranean  and 
the  other  with  the  Englishman's  Atlantic.  The 
rivers  of  Europe  as  a  whole  radiate  from  the 
center,  are  centrifugal,  and  flow  down  into  the 
seas,  to  the  North,  South,  East.  Thus  they  put 
a  separative  stamp  upon  the  face  of  the  country. 

Crossing  the  Ocean,  we  find  in  the  United 
States  both  characteristics,  the  marine  and  the 
fluvial,  combining  in  a  manner  Europe  and  the 
Orient.  That  is,  we  note  the  presence  of  a  vast 
River  Valley  which  is  again  to  determine  civili 
zation,  and  also  the  presence  of  sea-coast  States 
cut  through  by  separate  streams  flowing  down 
from  a  system  of  mountains.  Such  are  the  two 
supreme  physical  characteristics  of  the  land  —  the 
one  allying  it  to  the  Orient,  the  other  to  Europe. 
Nature  herself  thus  suggests  a  new  synthesis  of 
man  and  his  institutions. 

So  the  World's  History,  after  starting  in  the 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865). 

fluvial  civilization  of  the  Orient,  and  passing 
through  the  essentially  marine  civilization  of 
Europe  has  again  settled  down  in  another  River- 
Valley  larger  than  any  Oriental  one,  larger  than 
even  Europe's  marine  territory  —  Southern, 
Eastern  and  Northern.  Such  is  the  great  Occi 
dental  River-Valley  which  is  busied  in  this  Ten 
Years'  War  with  its  own  distinct  world-histori 
cal  problem.  For  it  has,  in  the  first  place,  to 
cleanse  itself  of  slavery ;  then  it  must  sweep 
around  into  the  marine  States,  which  are  not 
only  to  be  enfranchised  where  necessary,  but 
are  to  be  transformed  and  re-constituted  into  a 
new  Union,  which  is  to  embrace  both  the 
hitherto  dominating  elements  of  civilization  phy 
sically  considered,  that  of  the  Ocean  and  that 
of  the  River-Valley. 

Europe  has  indeed  many  River- Valleys  and 
some  large  ones,  but  they  are  essentially  diverg 
ing,  radiating  mainly  from  a  common  center,  as 
already  suggested,  if  we  except  Russia  and  two 
or  three  other  borderlands.  But  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  or  rather  system  of  valleys,  is  essentially 
converging,  centripetal  we  may  say;  especially 
is  this  the  case  in  the  West-Northern  Group  of 
States.  On  the  other  hand  the  great  River- 
Valleys  of  the  Orient,  such  as  those  of  the  Nile 
or  Euphrates,  show  little  convergence,  but  are 
mainly  long  lines  from  the  source  of  the  river  to 
its  mouth,  to  which  its  people  cling  directly, 


452          THE  T/-:.\  YEAlitf   WAR.  —  TAET  III. 

shunning  the  sea  and  other  peoples.  The  Mis 
sissippi  Valley  is  verily  a  federation  of  many 
Biver- Valleys  with  their  streams,  and  in  its 
physical  form  calls  for  a  corresponding  form  of 
Government.  Therein  it  differs  from  the  Orient 
as  well  as  from  Europe.  Moreover  this  feder 
ated  River-Valley  has  also  its  line  of  sea-board 
Territory  on  the  East  and  South,  and  also  on  the 
West. 

V.  If  we  now  turn  to  the  spiritual  or  institu 
tional  origin  of  this  West-Northern  Group  of 
States,  we  find  a  surprising  parallelism  with 
the  physical  character  of  the  land.  If  Nature 
has  stamped  Union  upon  its  face,  Institutions 
have  written  the  same  word  upon  its  heart. 
These  States  were  born  united  by  deeper  ties 
than  any  other  Group.  They  were  brought  forth 
by  Mother  Union  as  Free-States,  freedom  being 
their  peculiar  endowment  from  her  by  birth. 
They  accordingly  know  the  Union  as  Free-State 
producing  in  their  own  case,  and  reverence  her 
with  the  gratitude  of  free-born  children  who 
have  risen  to  a  consciousness  of  their  inheritance. 
Moreover  this  is  the  only  Group  which  were 
begotten  free  by  the  Union,  wherein  the  latter 
shows  its  genetic  soul  to  be  productive  of  Free- 
States.  Hence  this  Group  had  to  assert  its 
birthright  transmitted  from  the  Union  as  Free- 
State  producing,  which  became  its  strongest 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  453 

principle  of  action,  being  its  very  character  and 
genesis. 

The  East-Northern  States  had  no  such  origin 
and  consequently  no  such  institutional  character. 
They  were  indeed  free,  but  in  the  matter  of 
slavery  they  had  been  freed  through  themselves 
individually  and  not  through  the  Union.  Thus 
it  lay  in  their  character  to  leave  each  Single- 
State  to  free  itself.  They  made  the  Union 
indeed,  and  made  it  State-producing,  but  this 
profoundest  genetic  act  of  it  had  to  be  left 
double,  indeed  contradictory,  in  the  fact  that  it 
was  the  creative  source  of  both  Slave-States  and 
Free-States.  Now  mark  the  result.  The  Free- 
State  child  of  this  Union  made  dualistic  by  the 
Old-Thirteen  is  born  free  of  its  mother's  contra 
diction,  being  liberated  therefrom  by  its  birth. 
As  far  as  it  is  concerned,  the  Union  is  Free-State 
producing —  wherein  lies  its  deep  political  differ 
ence  from  the  East-Northern  Group. 

Still  the  Derived  Free-State  having  become  a 
member  of  the  Union,  sends  its  representatives 
and  senators  to  Washington,  whereby  it  shares 
in  the  State-producing  process  of  the  Union 
which  still  begets  both  kinds  of  States,  slave  and 
free.  Thus  it  too  becomes  whelmed  into  that 
original  contradition  of  the  Constitution,  till  one 
day  a  new  political  party  arises,  saying:  No 
more  Slave-States  out  of  our  Territories.  This 
principle  we  have  already  seen  unfolding  west- 


454         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.— PART  III. 

ward  and  eastward  till  it  elects  the  President, 
and  thus  makes  itself  national. 

But  it  is  not  going  to  stop  half  way  on  its 
career.  A  principle  is  universal,  and  when  it 
once  gets  started,  its  innermost  necessity  is  to 
make  itself  universal.  The  Union  as  Free-State 
producing  is  such  a  principle,  which  is  now  bent 
upon  universalizing  itself.  It  may  have  been 
first  promulgated  elsewhere  and  even  long  ago, 
but  it  belongs  creatively  to  the  West-Northern 
Group  of  Free-States,  which  must  impart  their 
own  deepest  principle  to  the  rest  of  the  States 
and  even  to  their  creator,  the  Union  itself,  which 
has  to  be  re-created  in  the  very  soul  of  it, namely, 
in  its  creativity,  being  made  no  longer  creative 
of  Slave-States. 

Moreover  this  Group  must  feel  the  original 
contradiction  of  the  Union  more  keenly  than  any 
of  the  other  three  Groups.  The  West-Northern 
Free-State,  born  of  the  double  Union,  has  to 
produce  or  share  in  producing  Slave-States,  when 
it  becomes,  as  it  must,  a  member  of  that  Union. 
Thus  it  has,  though  born  free,  to  beget  slaves  — 
from  which  act  it  must  internally  revolt  as  deeply 
repugnant  to  its  birthright  and  perversive  of  its 
innate  character.  Instinctively  it  has  to  medi 
tate  about  transforming  such  a  Union,  which  the 
East-Northern  States  made  or  had  a  hand  in 
making.  Suoh  a  transformation  of  it  is,  how 
ever,  not  to  destroy  it,  but  is  its  higher  evolution. 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  455 

According  I}7,  the  only  Free-States  produced 
by  the  old  Union  were  the  West-Northern  Group, 
which  will  now  wheel  about  and  sweep  back  to 
their  central  source,  and  make  it  Free-State 
producing  only  —  make  it  always  produce  Free- 
States  like  themselves,  calling  forth  thereby 
the  sole  true  Union,  homogeneous  in  the 
matter  of  freedom.  That  being  settled  for 
once  and  for  all,  it  can  be  otherwise  as  hete 
rogeneous  as  it  pleases.  Each  section  can  still 
have  and  assert  its  own  special  character,  and 
each  State  can  develop  its  individuality  to  the 
fullest  extent,  provided  that  it  commit  no  wrong 
upon  its  neighbor  or  upon  the  common  weal. 
But  when  any  State  hereafter  shares  in  the  gen 
etic  process  of  the  Nation,  it  must  take  part  in 
generating  a  Free-State ;  never  again  can  it  help 
produce  a  Slave-State.  Thus  the  creative  soul 
of  the  Union  is  transformed,  is  re-created  just 
in  its  deepest  and  most  essential  point,  namely  in 
its  power  to  create  new  States  and  thus  to  renew 
perpetually  itself.  And  in  this  respect  the  old 
Free-States,  as  well  as  the  old  Slave-States,  have 
been  transformed,  being  made  now  to  produce 
through  the  new  Union,  not  two  opposite  kinds 
of  States,  but  one  concordant  kind  and  one  only. 

It  may  be  said,  therefore,  that  the  West- 
Northern  Group  of  States  have  the  principle  of 
political  unity  and  of  Union  deeply  grounded  in 
their  origin  and  character;  they  have  it  more 


456         THE  TEN  YEAR&  WAR.  —  PART  III. 

decisively  than  any  other  Group  of  States.  The 
result  is  they  show  a  common  spirit,  which  is 
not  hampered  by  State  lines  to  the  same  degree 
as  elsewhere.  Among  them  the  inter-State  feel 
ing  seems  quite  as  strong  as  the  State  feeling. 

Still  a  dead  uniformity  does  not  prevail  in 
these  States;  they  show  great  differences,  much 
variety,  which,  however,  does  not  lie  so  much 
between  them  as  within  them.  This  fact  too 
must  be  looked  at. 

VI.  We  are  now  brought  to  consider  the  remark 
able  diversity  of  inhabitants  who  make  up  this 
West-Northern  Group  of  States.  The  migration 
thither  had  its  own  peculiar  character.  It  may 
be  deemed  a  new  phase  of  that  great  Wandering 
of  Peoples  which  has  accompanied  the  World's 
History  down  Time  and  forms  its  primal  sub 
strate.  This  migration  was  North  European, 
it  could  show  hardly  a  drop  of  Latin  blood.  The 
old  Teutonic  stock  was  again  moving,  and  set 
tling  vast  territories,  in  obedience  to  that  pro 
found  migratory  instinct  which  long  ago  drove  it 
out  of  Central  Asia,  through  Europe  Northern 
and  Southern,  across  the  Ocean  to  America, 
where  it  is  now  lighting  down  in  great  flocks 
upon  the  virgin  soil  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 
Again  the  Norseman,  the  German  and  the  Anglo- 
Saxon,  hoary  warlike  shapes  of  old  dominating 
Europe's  History,  appear  in  a  new  arena,  bent 
upon  a  now  conquest.  Not  now  with  battle-ax 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  457 

and  sword  but  with  that  other  kind  of  edged 
weapons,  the  wood-ax  and  the  ploughshare,  they 
come  not  in  massive  armies,  but  individually  for 
the  most  part ;  they  have  not  to  seize  and  hold 
the  land  by  violence,  but  they  receive  it  almost 
as  a  free  gift  from  a  new  institutional  order  of 
which  they  are  at  once  members,  and  which  they 
feel  to  be  their  own  from  the  start.  Still  they 
have  not  lost  their  old  fighting  qualities,  which 
they  are  soon  to  show  on  many  a  bloody  field, 
in  another  mighty  world-historical  contest. 

These  are  indeed  remote  outlooks  into  the  dis 
tant  Past  of  historic  origins.  Now  we  shall  drop 
down  into  our  own  era  again,  and  take  a  glance 
at  the  immediate  sources  of  this  population  pour 
ing  into  the  West-Northern  country.  Three 
main  streams  of  it  may  be  distinguished. 

(1)  The  first  was  the  foreign  migration, 
coming  largely  from  Germany  and  Scandinavia, 
and  settling  in  the  congenial  climate  of  the 
North  West.  It  was  made  up  of  hardy  farmers 
and  mechanics  who  could  dare  the  intervening 
Ocean  for  the  sake  of  bettering  their  own  con 
dition  and  that  of  their  families.  Their  leaders 
were  mostly  liberals  who  had  abandoned  Europe. 
Many  Germans  flocked  to  the  free  West  after  the 
failure  of  the  revolutions  in  1830  and  in  1848. 
They  shunned  the  Slave-States  with  two  excep 
tions,  Texas,  where  they  could  and  did  occupy 
whole  counties,  and  Missouri,  which  had  a  strong 


458        THE  TEX  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

native  element  hostile  to  slavery,  and  in  whose 
chief  city,  St.  Louis,  they  had  become  a  con 
trolling  political  power. 

This  migration  from  Northern  Europe  was  a 
kind  of  repetition  and  renewal  of  the  old  inva 
sion  of  England  from  the  same  quarter.  The 
English  still  show  a  strong  infusion  of  Scandi- 

O  O 

navian  and  German  blood.  But  this  second  great 
migration  of  Teutonic  peoples  westward  (which 
is  still  going  on),  skipped  their  first  landing 
place,  Great  Britain,  with  good  reason,  and 
crossed  the  sea  to  the  New  World,  and  largely 
to  the  newest  part  of  it,  watered  by  the  affluents 
of  the  Mississippi. 

The  Teutonic  element  was  already  powerful  in 
1860.  It  sided  chiefly  with  the  party  hostile  to 
the  spread  of  slavery.  It  doubtless  gave  the 
State  of  Illinois  to  Lincoln  in  his  contest  with 
Douglas  both  in  1858  and  1860.  It  furnished  to 
Lyon  and  Blair  the  regiments  which  held  Mis 
souri  firmly  in  the  Union  at  the  outset  of  the 
War. 

(2)  The  next  stream  of  migration  here  to 
be  mentioned  came  from  the  eastern  Free  States, 
particularly  from  New  England  and  occupied  in 
the  new  territory  a  northern  belt  from  East  to 
West.  These  people  brought  the  Yankee  thrift, 
the  democratic  habit,  the  religious  feeling  of  the 
Puritans,  but  above  all  the  moral  spirit  which 
had  been  strongly  impressed  with  wrongful  ness 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  459 

of  slavery.  Also  they  could  get  excited  over  the 
temperance  question  and  the  observance  of  the 
Sabbath,  in  which  matters  considerable  friction 
was  begotten  between  them  and  their  Teutonic 

o 

neighbors,  though  both  agreed  on  the  great  over 
shadowing  question  of  slavery. 

Still  these  New  England  people  far  back  were 
of  the  same  Teutonic  blood  and  speech,  even  if 
their  ancestors  had  set  out  from  the  common 
Fatherland  twelve  or  perchance  fourteen  centu 
ries  before  the  new  migration  had  begun  to  budge 
from  the  original  home.  But  both  migratory 
streams  had  at  last  flowed  together  on  the  same 
distant  spot  of  Earth,  the  one  reaching  it  through 
a  stretch  of  English  History  which  long  ante 
dates  Alfred,  the  other  reaching  it  through  a 
stretch  of  German  History  which  long  antedates 
Charlemagne.  A  very  different  historic  devel 
opment,  therefore,  lurks  in  each,  and  is  certain 
to  show  itself.  In  both,  however,  lies  the 
European  movement  out  of  barbarism  to  civiliza 
tion,  out  of  the  old  Teutonic  tribe  to  the  mod 
ern  State,  though  this  movement  proceeded  on 
diverse  lines  going  from  the  same  general  source 
to  the  same  general  end. 

Noticeable  also  is  a  native,  German-American 
migration,  quite  distinct  from  the  foreign  one, 
that  of  the  Pennsylvania  Germans,  who  moved 
on  a  line  westward  from  their  State  to  and  be 
yond  the  Mississippi.  Almost  wholly  agricultu- 


460         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

ral  were  these  people,  quite  inaccessible  to  new 
ideas  though  religious  and  simple-minded,  exceed 
ingly  tenacious  of  old  habits,  one  of  which  was 
to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket,  be  it  what  it  may, 
in  contrast  with  their  foreign  kindred  recently 
arrived.  Among  the  latter  the  names  of  Schurz, 
Hecker  and  Sigel  became  distinguished  for  the 
strong  support  given  to  their  adopted  country. 

(3)  It  is,  however,  the  third  great  stream  of 
migration  to  the  North-West  which  specially  in 
terests  us  at  present.  This  came  mostly  from 
the  old  Slave-States,  particularly  from  Virginia, 
though  the  new  Slave-States,  notably  Kentucky, 
furnished  a  large  contingent.  To  all  these 
Southern  emigrants  must  have  been  present  a 
choice  of  future  residence,  that  between  a  Slave- 
State  and  a  Free-State,  and  they  chose  the 
latter,  for  one  reason  or  other,  but  chiefly 
through  some  dissatisfaction  with  the  system  of 
slavery.  So  they  filled  up  southern  Ohio,  In 
diana  and  Illinois,  and  even  pushed  across  the 
Mississippi  into  Iowa,  through  which  we  have 
seen  them  pouring  down  into  Kansas.  They 
formed  a  distinctively  Southern  belt  in  the  East 
Northern  group  of  States,  though  other  elements 
were  not  absent  and  sometimes  dominated  in 
localities. 

It  is  not  said,  however,  that  they  were  all 
anti-slavery,  or  even  a  majority  of  them,  since 
they  were  apt  to  bring  from  the  South  a  dislike 


THE  GREAT  WAE  (1861-18G5).  461 

of  the  negro,  free  or  slave.  The  abstract  hu 
manity  of  the  German  and  the  New  Englander 
was  not  theirs.  Still  the  greater  number  of 
them  became  Free-State  men,  and  furnished  a 
large  part  of  the  early  Kansas  fighters.  We 
have  already  noted  the  effect  of  this  Southern 
migration  upon  the  South  itself  (see  preceding  p. 
310).  It  unquestionably  lost  in  this  way  many 
of  its  choicest  people,  the  most  progressive, 
aspiring,  freedom-loving.  Doubtless  this  migra 
tion  was  the  main  reason  why  the  early  emanci 
pation  movement,  at  first  very  strong,  gradually 
declined  and  finally  ceased  altogether  in  the 
States  of  Virginia,  Maryland  and  Kentucky.  It 
was  much  the  easier  thing  for  those  who  were 
dissatisfied  with  slavery  to  pack  up  and  move 
into  an  adjacent  Free-State  than  to  wage  a 
doubtful  fight  in  their  own  State.  What  they 
wanted  lay  near  at  hand,  without  any  contest. 
Southern  apologists  have  often  said  that  emanci 
pation  was  blasted  by  the  agitation  of  the  Abo 
litionists  in  the  North,  who  were  regarded  as 
trying  to  interfere  in  a  matter  which  was  none 
of  their  business.  The  argument  implies  that 
the  Southerners,  at  first  inclined  to  do  the  right 
thing,  changed  to  the  wrong  thing  from  spite. 
We  think  too  much  of  them  to  believe  that  this 
could  have  been  their  leading  motive,  even  if  it 
may  have  prevailed  with  some  persons. 

Another  important  fact  about  this    Southern 


462         THE  TEN  YEARS'   W AH.— PART  III. 

migration  to  the  West-Northern  States  is  the 
large  number  of  leaders  it  furnished  them,  herein 
surpassing  decidedly  the  other  two  elements. 
The  New  England  consciousness  was  more  moral 
and  less  institutional,  which  fact  made  it  the 
mother  of  good  preachers,  but  not  of  so  good 
statesmen.  The  truth  is  the  Puritan  never  fully 
recovered  from  his  primal  revolt  against  the  con 
stituted  authority  of  his  English  home.  This 
revolt  was  indeed  what  made  him,  was  his  creat 
ive  act.  On  moral  and  religious  grounds  he  broke 
with  his  State  and  ruler.  He  may  have  been  jus 
tified  in  his  revolt,  probably  was ;  still  the  twist 
it  gave  him  remained  ever  afterwards  and  he  bore 
it  with  him  to  the  new  world  and  to  the  new  West. 
Virginia,  largely  sprung  of  the  Cavalier,  never 
had  such  a  bent  in  its  birth ;  from  the  start  it  was 
more  institutional  and  less  moral.  It  produced  a 
marvelous  harvest  of  lawyers,  judges,  states 
men,  who  organized  and  governed  the  country; 
but  its  crop  of  preachers  and  writers  was  much 
inferior  in  size  and  excellence. 

We  can  well  ponder  the  fact  that  the  greatest 
leader  the  North  ever  had  was  a  Southerner. 
Lincoln  was  born  in  Kentucky,  his  family  came 
from  Virginia.  Many  of  his  most  prominent  as 
sociates  in  Illinois  were  from  the  South.  The 
best  gift  Virginia  ever  had,  greater  than  that  of 
any  other  State,  namely  the  gift  of  political 
leadership,  migrated  also  into  the  North- West 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  463 

and  showed  itself  there  among  her  children,  when 
it  had  declined  at  home. 

The  Southerners  also  were  chiefly  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood;  they  therefore  belonged  to  that 
same  Teutonic  stock  of  which  the  Puritans  were 
members.  In  England  the  division  between  the 
two  parties  had  taken  place,  and  this  division 
they  had  transplanted  to  America,  in  separate 
Colonies  however.  But  now  these  two  diverse 
parties  had  come  together  again  into  the 
same  State  and  into  the  same  series  of  States,  and 
were  in  the  process  of  being  brought  to  co-ope 
rate  for  an  end  greater  than  either  has  yet  had. 
Emphasize,  then,  we  must,  for  the  sake  of 
bringing  out  the  continuity  of  History,  that  the 
descendants  of  the  Cavalier  and  the  Roundhead 
are  entering  a  new  country  in  common  after 
their  bitter  separation  in  Old  England  some 
two  centuries  before.  But  the  stranger  fact 
is  that  along  with  both  of  them  are  com 
ing  the  direct  descendants  of  their  hoary 
Teutonic  ancestors,  from  whom  the  separation 
took  place  more  than  a  dozen  centuries  before, 
as  if  the  old  stock  of  their  race  had  been  tapped 
to  get  a  fresh  supply  of  its  blood  for  the  popu 
lation  of  the  new  land.  This  we  may  deem  a 
concentration  and  re-union  of  various  Teutonic 
branches  which  had  long  been  separated  and 
even  hostile. 

Our  next  point  must  be  to  find  what  unites 


464         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

these  hitherto  discordant  elements,  and  gives 
them  their  common  end.  German,  English, 
and  even  American  writers  appeal  to  the  pri 
mordial  Teutonic  love  of  freedom  manifested  al 
ready  against  the  Roman  in  the  forests  of 
Germany.  But  this  love  of  freedom  has  shown 
the  opposite  tendency  also :  it  separates  quite  as 
much  as  it  unites.  Hence  there  is  need  of  con 
sidering  the  special  form  which  the  common 
impulse  of  freedom  has  taken  so  that  it  has 
overcome  the  somewhat  centrifugal  Teutonic 
Folk-Soul,  which  far  down  in  its  deepest  depths 
underlies  nearly  all  the  diverse  strata  of  popula 
tion  in  the  West-Northern  group  of  Free-States. 
VII.  These  three  streams  of  migratory  peo 
ples —  the  Foreigner,  the  Easterner,  and  the 
Southerner  —  could  be  united,  in  spite  of  their 
diversity,  upon  one  political  principle,  that  of 
stopping  the  extension  of  slavery  to  the  terri 
tories.  They  had  all  chosen  to  migrate  to  a  Free- 
State  instead  of  a  Slave-State.  This  choice 
could  be  made  the  point  of  their  association  into 
an  active  party.  What  determined  their  migra 
tion  could  be  brought  to  determine  their  politi 
cal  organization.  To  be  sure  time  was  necessary 
for  the  fruit  to  ripen.  Still  we  can  see  that  the 
West-Northern  Group  of  Free-States  simply 
organized  their  own  principle  of  existence  into  a 
new  party,  which  soon  took  possession  of  a 
decided  majority  of  their  people. 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1866).  465 

Another  effect  of  different  belts  of  population 
located  within  the  same  State,  yet  running  across 
State  boundaries  into  other  adjacent  States,  was 
to  join  the  States  so  belted  together  into  a  new 
sort  of  Union.  The  result  was  that  State  lines 
did  not  mean  so  much  as  in  the  old  Colon  i;il 
States,  or  even  in  the  new  Slave-States.  For 
instance,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  are  more 
decidedly  united  by  their  belts  of  population  than 
they  are  separated  by  their  political  limits, 
which  are  purely  artificial.  On  the  other  hand, 
Kentucky,  a  new  State,  has  substantially 
but  one  belt  of  homogeneous  population  from 
East  to  West.  It  has  no  heterogeneous  belts 
of  people  breaking  over  its  political  limits,  and 
finding  their  own  kin  and  kind  beyond  the  latter. 
Hence  Kentucky  has  developed  a  unique  State 
pride  or  State  love,  which  cannot  be  found  in 
Ohio,  Indiana  or  Illinois.  Of  course  the  State 
limit  is  a  great  matter  everywhere  in  the  South 
and  was  emphasized  by  the  doctrine  of  State 
Eights.  Such  a  doctrine  never  did  and  never 
could  flourish  so  prodigiously  in  the  West-North 
ern  States,  where  separate  political  limits  would 
not  take  deep  root  in  the  emotions  of  her  strati 
fied  inhabitants.  This  State  pride  is  found  in 
the  East-Northern  States  also,  notably  in  Massa 
chusetts,  being  there  an  inheritance  of  the  col 
onial  period.  Ohio,  for  instance,  looks  across 
the  river  at  Kentucky,  and  sees  her  at  this 

30 


466         THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

moment  celebrating  a  grand  reunion  of  her 
children  from  every  quarter  of  the  whole  country 
and  hears  them  singing  with  an  enormous  outlay 
of  emotion  "  My  Old  Kentucky  Home." — But 
Ohio  has  only  to  say :  I  can't  do  that;  I  haven't 
the  song,  and  I  haven't  the  feeling  which  origin 
ally  made  it  and  sings  it  still  with  so  much  fervor. 

So  it  must  be  confessed  that  in  the  West- 
Northern  Group  State  patriotism  is  the  weaker 
and  Union  patriotism  is  the  stronger  force. 
This  fact  lies  in  their  very  genesis.  The  Old- 
Thirteen  were  children  of  England  and  of 
Europe;  they  are  so  still  in  many  respects,  being 
not  yet  fully  made  over.  But  the  new  States  of 
the  West  are  children  of  the  Union,  having  no 
other  parent  to  love  ;  hence  their  single-hearted 
devotion  to  that  parent  so  strikingly  manifested 
in  the  War.  Moreover  upon  this  Wrest-Northern 
Group  the  Union  had  bestowed  her  best  gift, 
freedom.  As  already  often  declared,  the  State- 
producing  Union  in  their  case  alone  produced 
Free-States,  and  thus  imparted  to  them  in  their 
origin  a  peculiar  character,  which  is  destined  to 
transform  all  the  States,  new  and  old,  and  even 
the  Union  itself. 

VIII.  When  we  regard  the  manner  of  settle 
ment  in  this  Group  of  Wrest-Northern  States, 
we  find  it  to  be  quite  different  from  that  of  the 
other  three  Groups.  It  was  almost  wholly  an 
individual  settlement  of  Towns,  Counties  and 


THK  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865-),  467 

States,  all  of  which  were  built  up  quite  con 
sciously  by  the  act  of  the  settlers,  each  co-oper 
ating  with  the  rest.  In  New  England,  on  the 
contrary,  the  original  colonists  came  in  congre 
gations  usually,  and  established  communities 
headed  by  the  minister.  So  also  largely  in 
Pennsylvania  and  other  East-Northern  States. 
Thus  the  already  organized  Village  Community 
with  its  members  was  still  the  type  of  settle 
ment,  as  it  had  been  in  Europe  from  time  im 
memorial.  In  the  South  the  slave-holder,  mi 
grating  with  his  slaves  into  the  new  Slave-States 
carried  with  him  his  institution  and  established  a 
kind  of  aristocracy,  of  which  he  was  the  center. 
Nothing  of  the  sort  could  exist  in  the  free 
North- West,  to  which  men  came  as  individuals, 
entered  their  piece  of  land  alrea'dy  surveyed  by 
the  Government,  and  started  at  once  building 
their  local  institutions.  Never  before  in  the 
World's  History  was  the  founding  of  the  State 
so  completely  bethought  and  prepared  for  by  its 
people ;  the  origin  of  Government  was  brought 
back  directly  to  the  individual  who  was  to  live 
under  it. 

Thus  man  has  become  for  the  first  time  a  con 
scious  institution-builder;  he  is  no  longer  to  be 
put  into  his  institutional  world  from  the  outside 
but  he  has  to  make  it  or  rather  re-make  it,  for 
undoubtedly  he  has  the  pattern  of  it  primarily 
in  the  Constitution  of  his  countrv,  and  also  in 


468         THE  TEN  YEARtf    \YAR.-~FARTIIl. 

his  own  brain.  He  is  .now  a  self-organizer, 
which  trait  the  armies  of  this  Group  of  States 
are  to  show  in  the  forthcoming  contest.  It  might 
be  supposed  that  the  free  man  would  not  be 
amenable  to  military  organization,  but  he  will 
not  only  take  it  but  make  it  over  anew  for  him 
self,  since  his  freedom  is  itself  organized  and 
organized  by  him,  being  not  an  arbitrary  but  an 
institutional  freedom.  It  may  be  added  that 
these  people  are  also  used  to  firearms,  being 
not  afraid  of  a  gun  and  knowing  how  to 
handle  it  effectively  and  what  it  is  made  for. 
The  European  peasant  cannot  be  supposed  to 
have  any  such  power  of  self-organization,  and 
he  as  soldier  has  to  be  drilled  into  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  his  nearest  friend,  the  shoot 
ing  iron  which  he  must  carry. 

Such  was  the  individual  character  of  this 
Western  migration,  even  if  communities  some 
times  migrated  as  wholes,  especially  religious 
communities,  as  Shakers,  Quakers,  Dunkards,and 
others  of  the  kind.  The  settler  usually  acted 
through  himself,  and,  taking  the  initiative, 
moved  to  the  new  country  from  his  old  State, 
not  as  a  member  of  a  tribe,  or  congregation,  or 
of  any  form  of  the  Village  Community  —  the 
old  Teutonic  and  even  Aryan  way  of  migration. 
The  self-determinating  individual  has  become  the 
unit  of  association,  and  begins  to  build  his  in- 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  469 

stitutional   home    consciously    rather    than    by 
instinct. 

The  cities  of  the  West  Northern  Group  of 
States  had  their  own  stamp  in  being  river-cities, 
lying  mainly  on  the  one  great  stream  or  its 
affluents,  which  became  lines  of  commercial  inter 
connection  between  them.  But  in  the  East- 
Northern  Group  the  chief  cities  were  sea-cities, 
each  lying  on  the  Ocean  independently,  and  being 
an  outlet  or  inlet  to  and  from  Europe,  to  which 
they  turned  their  face.  In  general  we  can  see 
that  the  East-Northern  Group  and  in  fact  the 
Old-Thirteen  as  a  whole  look  outward,  into  and 
across  the  sea,  while  the  Mississippi  Valley  States 
as  a  whole  look  inward,  are  introverted  if  not 
introspective.  We  can  truly  say  that  even  their 
physical  aspect  shows  a  tendency  to  look  to 
themselves  and  not  abroad,  which  fact  is  also 
indicated  and  emphasized  by  their  manner  of 
settlement.  Thus  we  note  two  distinct  tendencies 
pertaining  to  this  matter.  In  the  West  the  indi 
vidual  starts  with  himself  and  creates  his  institu 
tions  from  the  bottom  up  to  the  General  Gov 
ernment  ;  while  in  the  East  he  did  not  create  but 
was  born  into  his  institutional  world — the  com 
munity  and  the  State  were  given  to  him.  Un 
doubtedly  he  has  made  them  over  partially ;  but 
not  till  he  breaks  loose  from  his  community  and 
State,  is  he  reduced  to  his  individual  Self  which 
has  to  make  anew  all  his  institutions.  Thus  he 


470         THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

goes  back  and  recreates  out  of  himself  all  his 
social  presuppositions. 

We  are  therefore,  to  note  that  the  Free-States 
of  the  West  are  inhabited  by  a  people  or  by  their 
descendants,  who  left  their  State  and  its  local 
feeling  behind,  an  act  not  favorable  to  the  main 
tenance  of  State  ties.  Often  these  people  have 
removed  a  second  time  from  one  State  to  another, 
the  new  generation  seeking  a  new  State  further 
westward.  But  everywhere  the  emigrant  found 
the  Union,  which  had  gone  before  him,  surveyed 
and  secured  his  new  home.  So  he  knew  and 
loved  the  Union  better  than  he  did  any  particular 
State,  whereas  the  inhabitant  of  the  Old-Thirteen 
knew  and  loved  his  State  better  that  he  did  the 
Union  and  originally  before  the  Union  existed, 
which  was  indeed  made  by  them. 

This  fact  will  show  its  significance  and  its 
power  in  a  unique  way  during  the  War.  The 
Northern  and  Southern  members  of  the  Old- 
Thirteen  were  the  makers  of  the  Union  by  mu 
tual  agreement;  hence  the  thought  lies  near  that 
the  same  parties  might  unmake  it  by  mutual 
agreement.  Such  an  opinion  was  largely  held 
in  the  North  as  well  as  in  the  South,  as  we  have 
seen.  But  the  old  States  are  no  longer  the  sole 
parties  to  the  compact  (if  compact  it  be),  are 
no  longer  the  sole  determiners  of  the  Union, 
which  has  begotten  a  numerous  and  courageous 
offspring,  the  new  States,  who  do  not  propose  to 


THE  GBEAT  WAE  (1861-1865).  471 

let  the  source  of  their  being  perish  without  -a 
struggle,  or  even  be  remodeled  without  regard  to 
their  existence.  On  the  contrary  they  must  do 
the  remodeling,  or  rather  it  must  be  done  in 
accord  with  the  spirit  of  the  new  and  not  of  the 
old  States.  The  argument  for  separation  might 
be  valid  for  the  old  States  but  it  cannot  be 
accepted  by  the  new  States,  which  will  return  to 
the  beginning  and  reconstruct  the  argument 
itself  as  well  as  the  States.  The  genetic  princi 
ple  of  their  existence,  the  State-producing 
Union,  these  new  States  cannot  allow  to  be 
made  a  nullity  without  self-nullification.  In 
fighting  for  the  Union  they  are  fighting  for  their 
principle  of  creation.  So  they  have  much  more 
at  stake  than  the  Old-Thirteen  can  have,  since 
the  latter  existed  before  the  Union.  Wherewith 
another  duty  rises  to  view:  the  new  States  must 
really  make  a  new  Union,  and  re-unite  with  it 
the  old  States,  thus  unionizing  them  anew. 

A  striking,  indeed  a  startling  reflection  of  this 
fact  will  be  seen  in  the  course  of  the  war  it 
self.  The  old  States  dividing  into  the  Northern 
and  Southern  Groups  and  raising  great  armies, 
will  fight  each  other  desperately,  yet  neither  can 
conquer  the  other.  A  line  of  permanent  sepa 
ration  seems  drawn  between  them,  over  which 
neither  can  pass  without  the  penalty  of  defeat. 
In  like  manner  the  new  States  also  dividing  into 
the  Northern  and  Southern  Groups  and  raising 


472          THE   TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PAST  III. 

great  armies,  will  fight  each  other  desperately, 
but  with  quite  the  opposite  result.  The  line  of 
separation  between  them  keeps  moving  further 
southward  and  vanishing  more  and  more,  till  it 
is  quite  obliterated  by  the  soldiers  of  the  West- 
Northern  Group.  These  points  we  shall  set 
forth  more  fully. 

IX.  If  we  look  at  the  military  movements  of 
the  War  —  the  most  impressive  visible  manifest 
ation  of  it  —  we  observe  four  distinct  armies, 
one  for  each  of  the  above-mentioned  divisions  of 
the  whole  country.  The  scheme  will  then  be  as 
follows :  — 

1 .  The  East-Northern  Army . 

2.  The  East-Southern  Army. 

3.  The  West-Northern  Army. 

4.  The  West-Southern  Army. 

These  four  armies  were  chiefly  made  up  of  men 
from  their  respective  sections.  Each  of  these 
large  bodies  of  soldiers  showed  a  distinctive  char 
acter  corresponding  to  their  separate  localities. 
The  first  two  were  arrayed  against  each  other 
during  the  whole  War,  and  the  scene  of  fighting 
was  substantially  one  small  piece  of  ground 
lying  between  the  two  Capitals,  Washington  and 
Richmond.  The  second  two  were  likewise  arrayed 
against  each  other,  and  the  scene  of  their  fighting 
was  every  seceded  State  of  the  Union  but  one,  the 
whole  of  which  the  West-Northern  Army  overran, 
pursuing  its  defeated  antagonist.  Thus  it  re- 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  473 

duced  or  neutralized  ten  out  of  the  eleven  States 
in  rebellion — all  except  Virginia.  We  may  con 
sider  its  line  of  battle  as  that  of  a  radius  drawn 
from  the  Capital  as  center  and  circling  about  the 
entire  revolted  territory,  even  if  Texas  was  left 
largely  to  itself,  being  quite  isolated  after  the  fall 
of  Vicksburg.  The  sweep  was  that  of  a  huge 
arm,  the  arm  of  Mother  Union  reaching  out  to 
the  extreme  border  and  bending  around  to  em 
brace  her  rebellious  children,  still  dear  though 
naughty.  On  the  other  hand  the  Eastern  military 
movement  seemed  fixed  to  one  little  stretch  of 
Territory,  in  which  there  was  no  vast  State-em 
bracing  sweep  but  a  kind  of  sea-saw  between 
the  two  armies,  with  a  continued  equilibrium  of 
defeat  and  victory  for  each  side  If  the  East- 
Northern  army  passed  a  certain  line  —  we  may 
call  it  a  line  of  separation  between  the  North 
and  South  —  it  met  with  a  bloody  repulse;  the. 
same  repulse  came  to  the  East-Southern  army, 
if  it  passed  that  same  line,  whose  limits  cannot 
be  laid  out  exactly  to  the  spot,  but  are  none  the 
less  real. 

Now  it  is  this  line  of  separation  between  the 
two  sets  of  States  and  their  armies,  which  is  the 
most  striking  fact  of  the  entire  Virginia  cam 
paign.  Washington  cannot  take  Richmond  and 
Richmond  cannot  take  Washington,  though  but 
little  more  than  a  hundred  miles  apart.  The 
same  fate  meets  the  one  army  getting  to  the 


474          THE  TEX  YEARS'    WAR.  — PART  III. 

James  and  the  other  army  getting  to  the  Poto 
mac.  Or,  more  technically  stated,  if  either 
army  takes  decidedly  the  offensive,  it  is  driven 
back ;  if  it  remains  on  its  side  of  that  line  of 
separation,  it  is  victorious.  Each  wins  on  the 
defensive,  but  loses  on  the  offensive.  Such  is 
the  persistent  fact  of  that  Eastern  struggle, 
though  exceptions  occur  both  ways. 

We  may  regard  Antietam  and  Gettysburg  as 
bloody  warnings  to  the  Southern  host;  more 
numerous  and  more  sanguinary  are  the  warnings 
to  the  Northern  host  from  Manassas,  Fredericks- 
burg  and  the  Peninsular  battles.  Both  hosts 
have  transgressed,  have  sought  to  cross  the  for 
bidden  line,  for  which  act  each  gets  a  blow  like 
that  of  Fate  itself.  But  what  prescribed  that 
line?  Who  laid  down  this  peculiar  prohibition 
and  for  what  reason?  Some  Power  over  both 
yet  of  both,  we  have  to  think;  it  uses  these  two 
hosts  as  means  for  its  end,  which,  however,  is 
also  the  supreme  national  end. 

It  is  manifest  that  the  Old-Thirteen  are  di^ 
vided  into  two  parts,  Northern  and  Southern, 
and  each  is  fighting  the  other  with  the  greatest 
valor  and  endurance;  yet  neither  can  finally  and 
fully  get  the  better  of  the  other.  Neither  can 
possess  itself  of  that  strange  elusive  line  of  sepa 
ration  ;  the  South  cannot  conquer  it  and  hold  it 
and  thus  win  Disunion  by  fixing  this  line,  and 
the  North  cannot  conquer  it  and  hold  it  and  thus 


THE  QRKAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  475 

win  Union  by  obliterating  this  line.  Both  sets  of 
these  States  once  made  the  Union,  working 
together;  one  set,  the  Southern,  wishes  to  with 
draw  ;  the  other  set,  the  Northern,  seeks  to  pre 
vent  such  withdrawal  but  has  not  succeeded. 

The  result  is  or  must  be  that  the  East-Southern 
army,  being  really  on  the  defensive,  has  made 
good  the  line  of  separation  in  the  Old-Thirteen. 
This  can  only  mean,  if  they  alone  are  concerned, 
that  the  Union  is  dissolved.  But  such  is  not  the 
case,  for  not  in  the  old  but  in  the  new  States  lies 
the  decision  of  the  conflict. 

X.  Thirty-four  States  are  members  of  the 
Union  during  the  War,  if  we  count  the  eleven 
which  have  seceded.  Twenty-one  of  these  are 
new  or  derived  States,  all  of  which  are  western  ex 
cept  two.  Thus  a  decided  majority  of  the  States 
are  new  and  western.  These  children  of  the 
Union,  according  to  the  majority  rule,  must  be 
its  controlling  element  finally,  and  re-make  it 
after  their  own  highest  principle,  which  is  spec 
ially  the  work  of  the  West-Northern  Group  of 
Free-States  as  already  indicated. 

At  present,  however,  we  wish  to  see  the  main 
sweep  of  the  West-Northern  army  during  the 
War.  In  the  first  place  its  military  movement 
is  an  offensive  one  from  beginning  to  end,  in 
contrast  with  that  of  the  East-Northern  army, 
whose  main  act  was  a  defensive  one,  that  of  de 
fending  Washington.  The  on  ward  march  of  the 


476         THE  TEN  TEAKS'    WAE.  —  PART  III. 

western  soldiers  continued  practically  to  the 
close.  Of  course  there  were  influences  and 
regurgitations  breaking  through  the  ever-ad 
vancing  line,  like  those  of  Bragg  in  1862,  and 
Hood  in  1864,  but  they  were  temporary. 

Eepeatedly  has  this  western  military  move 
ment  been  designated  as  circular  in  its  general 
contour,  sweeping  down  the  great  valley  to  the 
South,  then  to  the  East,  then  to  the  North,  and 
embracing  both  Tiers  of  the  seceded  States  ex 
cept  Virginia.  Such  was  indeed  the  positive 
act  of  the  War.  When  the  Confederacy  was  no 
more,  ten  of  its  States  being  held  by  the  West- 
Northern  army,  Richmond  could  no  longer  be 
defended,  and  Lee  surrendered,  giving  up  the 
Capital  when  it  was  no  longer  a  Capital.  But 
this  vast  circular  sweep  is  truly  significant;  it 
brings  before  us  one  mighty  image  of  the  whole 
War  on  its  offensive  and  positive  side,  with  the 
West-Northern  host  ever  pushing  forward  and 
wheeling  on  the  left,  till  it  has  picked  up  all  the 
parts  of  the  dismembered  Union  and  holds  them 
in  its  embrace. 

The  estimate  has  been  made  that  fully  one- 
half  of  those  slain  in  the  War,  and  of  those 
who  were  wounded  spilt  their  blood  in  the  small 
area  of  Virginia  soil.  Here  too  was  spent  fully 
one-half  of  the  cost  of  the  whole  conflict. 
Brave,  patriotic,  conscientious  were  these  men, 
but  the  tragedy  makes  the  nation  shudder  still. 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  477 

That  gory  see-saw  comes  up  before  the  imagina 
tion  as  a  blood  drinking  monster  placed  between 
the  two  armies  and  demanding  from  both  its 
quota  with  surprising  regularity.  What  had 
those  two  sets  of  old  States  done  that  each  be 
came  such  an  awful  Nemesis  to  the  other?  But 
neither  is  able  to  put  an  end  to  its  antagonist ; 
when  exhausted  each  takes  breath  for  a  time  in 
order  to  recuperate,  but  new  strength  is  only  new 
food  for  the  Furies,  who  seem  always  getting 
ready  for  a  fresh  carnival  somewhere  on  that 
piece  of  insatiate  earth  between  and  around  the 
two  Capitals. 

The  other  half  of  the  grand  outlay  of  blood 
and  treasure  must  be  assigned  to  the  West- 
Northern  army.  Its  opponent,  the  West-South 
ern  army,  though  of  unquestioned  bravery,  does 
not  persistently  impede  its  advance.  Outside  of 
soldierly  qualities,  which  were  quite  the  same  in 
both  armies,  and  outside  of  any  superiority  of 
numbers  or  material,  the  two  causes  in  the  West 
seemed  unequal  from  the '  start  —  the  one  being 
inherently  the  stronger  and  advancing,  the 
other  inherently  the  weaker  and  retreating. 
This  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  equilibrium 
of  the  two  armies  in  the  East,  and  it  would  also 
seem,  of  the  two  causes.  Here  a  couple  of 
problems  arise :  first,  why  such  a  difference 
between  East  and  West;  secondly,  why  such  a 
difference  between  the  West-Northern  and  West- 


478         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

Southern    armies    and  also  their    causes?      The 
last  question  we  shall  consider  first. 

The  new  Slave-States,  the  West-Southern 
Group,  which  had  seceded,  were  also  children 
of  the  Union.  Now  they  are  trying  to  slay 
their  parent.  Of  the  four  Groups  of  States 
already  mentioned,  this  Group  alone  is  seeking 
to  destroy  the  source  of  its  being.  Its  act 
has  accordingly  a  parricidal  character.  This 
cannot  be  charged  upon  the  old  Slave-States, 
the  East-Southern  Group,  which  have  also  se 
ceded,  for  they  are  not  the  children  of  the 
Union,  and  their  relation  to  it  is  different. 
Now  let  us  turn  our  look  to  the  West-North 
ern  States,  also  children  of  the  Union,  which 
however,  they  are  pouring  out  their  heart's  blood 
to  save.  Save  from  whom?  From  that  other 
group  of  children  who  are  seeking  to  destroy 
this  same  parent.  Which  of  the  two  groups  of 
children  has  the  higher  principle,  from  this 
point  of  view  —  the  loyal  or  disloyal,  the  defend 
ers  or  the  assailants  of  the  common  parent? 
Such  is  one  ground  of  difference  between  the  two 
causes,  and  we  cannot  help  thinking  that  it  en 
ters  into  the  spirit  of  the  two  contending  armies. 
Then  another  ground  of  difference :  that  West- 
Northern  army  is  fighting  for  a  Union  which 
produces  Free- States,  while  the  West-Southern 
army  is  fighting  for  a  Union  which  produces 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  479 

Slave-States,    this   being  the  character   of    the 
Southern  Confederacy  and  their  own  also. 

In  fact,  the  mentioned  Group  of  new  Slave- 
States  in  trying  to  undo  the  parent  who  brought 
them  forth  as  Slaves-States,  have  become  logi 
cally  self-undoing.  Also  they  are  unconsciously 
avenging  upon  the  Union  its  act  of  producing 
Slave-States.  The  irony  of  the  World-Spirit, 
very  frequently  one  of  its  subtlest  weapons, 
not  in  the  word  but  in  the  deed,  is  serving  up  to 
them  a  draught  of  their  own  conduct.  For  if 
they  succeed  in  doing  that  which  they  are  trying 
with  all  their  might  to  do,  namely,  to  slay  the 
Union,  they  are  destroying  that  which  made 
them  Slave-States,  and  it  may  be  added,  for 
making  them  Slave-States.  Thus  the  Union  also 
comes  in  to  receive  its  stroke  of  retribution  for 
bringing  such  children  into  existence,  which 
children  are  transformed  into  its  punishers,  who 
in  their  turn  are  likewise  to  be  punished.  The 
vengeance  which  they  wreak  upon  their  parent, 
even  if  guilty,  is  itself  to  be  avenged.  They 
turn  back  upon  and  assail  the  source  of  their 
creation  for  creating  them  what  they  are.  That 
is,  the  Union-produced  Slave-States  are  smiting 
with  all  their  might  the  Slave-State  producing 
Union.  And  yet  they  proclaim  and  honestly 
think  that  they  are  fighting  for  a  Union  pro 
ductive  of  Slave-States.  Self -negative  they  are 
in  their  deepest  spirit,  and  really  are  taking  the 


480         THE   TEN  YEARS'    WA A'.  —  J'AJf  /'///. 

shortest  road  to  destroy  just  what  they  arc  lav 
ishly  and  devotedly  pouring  out  their  blood  to 
save.  It  is  this  inner  self-contradiction  which 
lames  their  cause,  the  war  within  cannot  help 
bringing  defeat  to  the  war  without.  No  such 
self-contradiction  is  felt  in  the  cause  or  in  the 
soul  of  the  West-Northern  army  which  marches 
out  not  to  destroy  but  to  defend  its  parent  Union, 
and  also  to  perpetuate  it  as  Free-State  produc 
ing. 

Pondering  on  these  two  very  diverse  parts  of 
the  two  Groups  of  new  States,  Northern  and 
Southern,  in  the  colossal  world-drama  playing 
before  us,  we  cannot  help  thinking  of  another 
world-drama  of  the  literary  sort,  Shakespeare's 
Lear.  In  it  likewise  are  the  two  groups  of 
children,  faithless  and  faithful  to  the  parent,  one 
group  of  whom,  the  faithless,  brings  back  to  him 
his  tragic  violation,  which  act  is  in  return  avenged 
by  the  faithful  group,  who  thereby  restore  peace 
and  harmony  to  the  deeply  disturbed  institutional 
order.  Of  its  ways  we  catch  many  a  glimpse 
like  the  following : 

I  told  him  the  revenging  Gods 
'Gainst  parricides  did  all  their  thunders  bend. 

XI.  We  have  to  keep  peering  back  of  this 
struggle  of  armies  to  see  what  it  means,  what  is 
its  propelling  principle  or  Idea.  Quite  dis 
tinctly  does  this  Idea  have  a  voice  during  the 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  4S1 

War.  The  People  must  hear  it  and  thereby  be 
come  aware  of  that  for  which  they  are  spending 
their  treasures  of  life  and  money ;  in  other  words 
they  must  get  to  know  the  decree  of  the  World- 
Spirit,  and  be  brought  to  support  it  with  all 
their  energy.  Already  we  have  emphasized  the 
fact  that  Lincoln  is  supremely  the  voice  of  the 
World-Spirit  to  the  People  as  well  as  the  execu 
tor  of  its  behests.  He  is  the  incarnation  of  the 
Idea  of  the  Union  (which  is  to  be  made  over  as 
producing  Free-States  only),  while  the  military 
and  naval  forces  show  that  Idea  armed  and 
realizing  itself,  the  People  furnishing  the  means 
in  men,  money,  and  also  votes.  In  this  way  the 
inner  process  of  the  vast  and  intricate  maze  of 
events  begins  to  manifest  itself.  Lincoln  must 
be  regarded  as  the  vehicle  of  the  World-Spirit, 
and  he  thus  becomes  the  central  figure  of  the 
War,  keeping  the  People  in  touch  with  the 
supreme  purpose  of  History,  with  what  may  also 
be  called  its  Idea. 

At  the  same  time  this  Idea  has  to  go  through 
ita  various  stages  of  development,  it  has  to  evolve 
both  in  Lincoln  and  in  the  People.  Not  of  a 
sudden  is  the  great  work  done,  or  even  seen;  it 
starts  simply  with  preserving  the  Union,  then 
moves  forward  to  emancipation,  then  to  recon 
struction.  Such  was  the  inner  process  lurking 
in  the  events  of  the  War,  as  well  as  in  the  soul  of 
the  People,  but  obtaining  its  most  complete 

31 


182         THE  TEN  YEARV    WAR.  —  PART  III. 

utterance  in  the  words  of  the  Leader,  whose 
supreme  function  was  to  harness  the  Nation  to 
Civilization,  and  to  keep  it  thus  harnessed  till  its 
task  be  done. 

Overwhelming  is  the  mass  of  occurrences 
during  these  four  years  of  military  and  political 
activity,  if  viewed  externally.  The  interior 
lines  of  their  movement  must  be  brought  to  the 
surface  and  described  if  we  are  ever  to  escape 
from  the  chaos  of  historic  details  bubbling  up 
synchronously  and  in  succession  over  areas  ex 
tending  thousands  of  miles.  Now  as  this  whole 
War  shows  the  Union  re-united  or  re-won,  we 
shall  observe  three  chief  periods  in  the  process 
or  three  Winnings  which  may  be  designated  in 
advance  as  follows : 

I.  The    Winning    of    the    unseceded    Slave- 
States —  old    and  new  —  which  gives    the    first 
Period   of  the  War  (1861-2).     The  expressed 
end  is  the  simple  preservation  of  the  Union  as  it 
was. 

II.  The    Winning     of     the     seceded    Slave- 
States  —  new  —  which  gives  the  Second  Period 
of   the  War  (1862-3).      The  expressed    end  is 
now   the  emancipation  of  the    Union   from    its 
dual  condition,  half-slave  and  half-free. 

III.  The    Winning    of    the     seceded    Slave- 
States —  old  —  which  gives   the  Third  and  final 
Period    of   the  War  (1864-5).      The  expressed 
end  is  the  reconstruction  of  the  Union,  which  is 


THE  GREAT  WAR  (1861-1865).  483 

a  return  to  its  birth  as  State-producing,  and 
makes  it  reproduce  each  Slave-State,  new  and 
old,  as  free.  Thereby  appears  or  begins  to  ap 
pear  the  new  Union  formed  of  Free-States  only. 

These  three  Periods  are  not  each  of  the  same 
length  of  Time,  nor  are  their  limits  fixed  to  a 
a  day.  That  upon  which  our  thought  should  be 
centered  is  the  process  revealing  itself  in  these 
stretches  of  Time,  which  is  but  its  outermost 
garment,  and  which  may  be  now  a  little  longer 
and  now  a  little  shorter.  It  is  evident  that  the 
cycle  of  the  Ten  Years'  War  completes  itself  by 
making  the  Union  Free-State  producing  com 
pletely,  by  making  it  embrace  not  only  the 
Future  in  the  matter  of  Territories,  but  also  the 
Past  in  the  matter  of  States.  In  fact  the  Union 
itself  is  re-born;  there  is  a  return  to  its  first 
birth,  and  a  re-creating  of  it  as  creative. 

Thus  the  round  is  finished  and  all  the  seceded 
States  are  re-won — an  external  restoration  at 
first,  which,  however,  is  to  be  made  internal  with 
time.  But  we  must  also  notice  that  in  each  of 
the  mentioned  Periods  is  found  a  similar  process, 
which  runs  in  this  way :  first  the  Idea  of  it  will 
be  stated  generally  by  the  President  in  address  or 
message,  at  the  seat  of  Government,  and  then 
formulated  in  law  by  Congress ;  second  is  the 
Idea  armed  in  the  military  and  naval  powers,  and 
thereby  realizing  itself;  third  is  the  Idea  backed 
by  the  People  who  stick  to  their  great  task  and 


484          THE  TEN  YKARS'    WAR.  —  PART  III. 

follow  the  words  of  Lincoln,  answering  his  re 
peated  calls  for  fresh  troops  and  more  money,  as 
well  as  supporting  him  by  their  votes.  Such  is 
the  process  of  the  Idea  of  the  Union  directing 
each  of  the  three  designated  Periods,  of  which  it 
is  the  soul  or  formative  energy.  In  such  fashion 
we  seek  mentally  to  seize  the  whirl  of  Time's 
events,  though  moving  with  an  enormously  accel 
erated  velocity,  and  throwing  off  in  a  year  such 
a  multitude  of  important  actions,  that  they  would 
ordinarily  require  a  century  for  their  happening. 


THE  FIRST  WINNING  —  1861-2.  485 


Winning  of  tbe 
Slave^States  (015  anfc  IRew) 

1861-2. 

The  first  great  problem  in  1861  was  to  hold  in 
the  Union  the  upper  Tier  of  Slave-States  after 
the  two  other  Tiers  had  seceded.  Maryland 
with  little  Delaware  belonging  to  the  old  group, 
Kentucky  and  Missouri  belonging  to  the  new 
group  of  Slave-States,  had  in  their  borders  con 
siderable  bodies  of  active  secessionists  who 
sought  to  join  these  Commonwealths  to  the 
Southern  Confederacy.  But  a  decided  majority 
of  the  population  in  each  of  them  was  favorable 
to  the  Union.  Still  this  majority  had  to  be  handled 
with  great  circumspection.  Neutrality  became 
for  a  short  time  the  favorite  policy  in  these 
states,  especially  in  Kentucky.  Thus  a  barrier 
would  be  interposed  between  the  two  combatants, 
Northern  and  Southern,  and  war  might  be 
averted.  It  soon  became  manifest,  however, 
that  such  a  policy  meant  the  success  of  rebellion, 
since  the  seceded  States  would  be  protected  by  a 
wall  of  neutrals,  and  could  not  be  co-erced. 
In  Baltimore  troops  hurrying  from  the  North 
to  the  defence  of  Washington  were  assailed  and 
stopped  for  a  while.  In  both  Kentucky  and 
Missouri,  the  Governors  denounced  Lincoln's 


486          THE  TEN  fEAR&   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

first  call  for  volunteers,  and  refused  compliance, 
but  their  opposition  was  unavailing.  West  Vir 
ginia  would  not  accept  the  ordinance  of  Seces 
sion  from  Richmond,  and  began  the  making  of 
itself  over  into  a  new  State.  Thus  the  gap  was 
filled  between  Maryland  and  Kentucky,  and  the 
Tier  of  unseceded  Slave-States  reached  in  an  un 
interrupted  line  from  the  sea-board  to  Kansas. 

We  shall  seek  to  outline  the  first  Period  in  its 
process,  which  embraces  the  events  from  the 
beginning  of  the  War,  in  1861,  till  Autumn  1862. 
Thus  we  can  catch  a  view  of  the  first  round  of 
occurrences,  in  which  is  seen  the  fundamental 
process  lurking  in  the  vast  diversity  of  happen 
ings  before  us.  Such  is,  indeed,  the  movement 
of  the  World-Spirit  itself,  or  we  may  call  it  the 
Idea,  the  stages  of  whose  process  we  shall  put 
together  as  follows:  (I)  The  Idea  formulated 
by  President  or  Congress  usually  ;  (II)  The  Idea 
armed  by  the  naval  and  military  Powers;  (III) 
The  Idea  realized,  being  taken  up  and  backed  by 
the  Nation.  In  each  of  the  three  mentioned 
Periods  we  shall  find  this  same  process  repeating 
itself;  and  in  each  stage  of  this  process  we  shall 
likewise  find  essentially  the  same  movement. 

I.  The  Idea  formulated .  We  have  to  look  to 
the  center,  to  Washington,  for  the  creative  Idea 
or  Thought  which  leads  to  the  result.  Lincoln 
in  his  Messages  and  Addresses  sounds  the  key 
note :  the  Primacy  of  the  Union.  This  is  the 


THE  FIRST  WINNING  —  1861-2.  4.87 

doctrine  which  finally  wins  the  Border  States,  at 
first  balancing  between  the  two  opposing  tend 
encies,  and  somewhat  uncertain  which  way  to 
go.  Sparing  their  feelings,  Lincoln  keeps  in  the 
background  the  slavery  question  till  they  are 
ready  to  meet  it.  He  will  at  the  start  restore  the 
Union,  the  old  Union  as  double,  with  its  States 
both  slave  and  free.  He  does  not  take  back  his 
doctrine  of  stopping  the  extension  of  slavery  to 
the  territories,  but  he  does  not  dwell  on  it  in  the 
presence  of  a  more  pressing  question.  His  first 
work  is  to  lead  these  doubting  States  away  from 
the  Primacy  of  the  Single-State  to  the  Primacy 
of  the  Union.  In  this  his  success  is  emphatic. 
To  be  sure,  they  cannot  stop  long  at  such  a 
point;  the  Union  cannot  remain  half -slave  and 
half-free.  The  State-producing  Union  has  been 
productive  of  both  sorts  of  States  hitherto,  but 
just  this  is  what  cannot  continue.  The  contra 
diction  must  work  itself  out  to  the  surface  and 
be  eliminated.  How  can  a  Union  half -slave  and 
half-free  produce  wholly  free  States?  For  a 
time  it  may  do  so,  but  not  permanently,  accord- 
in  v  to  Lincoln's  most  famous  utterance.  At 

o 

present,  however,  the  Border  Slave-States  can 
be  brought  to  take  this  first  step  of  maintaining 
"  the  Constitution  as  it  is  and  the  Union  as  it 
was,"  which  is  quite  a  stride  for  them. 

So  it  comes  that    the  third  or  upper  Tier  of 
Slave-States  remains  in  the  Union,  the  wave  of 


488          THK  TEN  YEARS'   WAR.  —  PAH  T  III. 

Secession  breaking  in  vain  against  it.  Three 
sorts  of  States  are  included  in  it.  (a)  Two  of 
the  Original  Thirteen  which  helped  make  the 
Union,  remain  faithful  —  Delaware  and  Mary 
land,  (b)  Two  of  the  Derived  Slave-States, 
Kentucky  and  Missouri,  refuse  to  go  out  with 
the  other  seven  of  their  sort,  (c)  One  State  of 
this  Tier  (West  Virginia)  is  peculiar,  it  may  in 
a  sense  be  considered  both  original  and  derived. 
It  was  a  part  of  old  .Virginia,  and  hence  assisted 
at  the  birth  of  the  Union  and  Constitution;  yet 
it  becomes  a  new  or  derived  State,  the  child  of 
the  Union  and  Constitution.  It  is  born  anew, 
being  made  over  from  a  seceded  into  an  unse- 
ceded  Slave-State,  which,  however,  is  in  time  to 
free  itself  of  slavery.  Thus  it  has  within  itself 
the  process  which  forecasts  the  Union  as  Free- 
State  producing  universally,  enfranchising  not 
only  the  Territories,  but  the  Slave-States  them 
selves,  new  and  old.  West  Virginia  from  this 
point  of  view  may  be  said  to  reveal  the  widest 
sweep  of  the  War,  the  transformation  of  the 
Original  Thirteen  into  the  new  order,  and 
specially  of  the  old  Slave-State  into  the  new 
Free-State.  The  act  is  probably  outside  of  the 
Constitution,  which  thus  is  made  to  go  back  to 
the  start  and  re-make  not  only  itself  but  its 
makers — the  States  which  mad^e  it. 

II.    T.'ir.'  Idea  armed.    This  is  the  element  of 
manifestation  in  the  War,  its  colossal  spectacular 


THE  F1EST  WINNING  —  1861-2.  489 

element,  its  thought  realizing  itself  in  action  over 
the  vast  area  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Rockies. 
It  is  that  part  upon  which  History  dwells  and 
dilates  with  a  peculiar  fondness,  picturing  the 
deeds  of  armies  and  of  individuals  in  all  their 
diversities  and  fluctuations.  The  central  Idea 
now  rays  itself  out  into  a  multiplicity  of  events 
in  which  the  mind  gets  lost  unless  it  be  continu 
ally  brought  back  from  their  mazes  to  their 
genetic  clew. 

In  the  briefest  manner  we  shall  seek  to  desig- 

o 

nate  the  indwelling  process  of  the  armed  con 
flicts  of  the  War.  These  take  place  on  sea  and 
land;  the  Idea  is  equipped  with  two  kinds  of 
weapons,  military  and  naval.  The  military  is 
by  far  the  largest  and  most  important  branch  of 
the  nation's  service,  the  most  impressive  dis 
play  of  the  People's  Will  to  defend  and  preserve 
their  Union.  So  we  shall  divide  the  army  into 
two  parts,  the  Eastern  and  Western,  each  of 
which  has  its  own  special  task,  and  also  unfolds 
its  own  peculiar  character.  The  one  (Eastern) 
is  essentially  defensive,  while  the  other  (West 
ern)  is  essentially  offensive;  the  navy  is  essen 
tially  preventive.  Yet  each  can  and  does  at 
times  play  the  part  of  either  of  the  other  two. 
We  shall  begin  with  the  work  of  the  navy. 

(a).  As  the  South  had  almost  no  ships  and 
not  many  sailors,  there  could  be  little  offensive 
or  defensive  warfare  of  the  naval  sort.  The 


490         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAE.  -  PAET  III. 

chief  duty  of  the  navy  was,  accordingly,  of  a 
preventive  nature,  that  of  blockading  Southern 
ports  and  harbors.  Ships  could  keep  the  out 
side  world  from  supplying  the  wants  of  the 
States  in  rebellion,  which  had  little  diversifica 
tion  of  industry,  and  badly  needed  munitions 
of  war. 

In  this  early  period  of  the  struggle  may  be 
placed  two  famous  events  in  which  the  navy  took 
the  offensive.  On  March  8th,  1862,  the  Con 
federate  iron-clad  Merrimac  steaming  into  Hamp 
ton  Eoads  disabled  and  destroyed  the  blockading 
ships.  The  next  day  the  Monitor,  also  iron-clad, 
appeared  on  the  Federal  side,  and  succeeded  in 
putting  an  end  to  the  career  of  the  Merrimac. 
On  the  closing  days  of  April,  Flag-officer  Farra- 
gut  captured  New  Orleans,  the  chief  seaport  and 
largest  city  in  the  South.  Both  these  events  had 
a  strong  deterring  influence  upon  those  nations 
of  Europe  which  were  previously  inclined  to 
break  the  blockade  and  recognize  the  Southern 
confederacy. 

(&).  Of  the  two  great  military  movements,  the 
defensive  one  around  and  between  the  capitals 
comes  next  in  order.  As  soon  as  Washington 
was  reasonably  secure,  there  arose  in  the  North 
the  cry :  Forward  to  Richmond.  Leading  news 
papers,  especially  the  New  York  Tribune,  be 
came  very  importunate.  The  result  was  the  first 
battle  of  Bull  Run,  in  which  the  Northern  army 


THE  FIRST  WIXNIKG  —  1861-2.  491 

fled  from  the  field  in  a  panic,  back  to  the  de 
fenses  of  Washington,  July  21st.  This  was  the 
first  important  battle  in  the  East,  and  was  a  typ 
ical  one  prefiguring  all  which  were  to  follow.  The 
Capital  was  successfully  defended  ;  but  when  that 
East-Northern  army  passed  from  the  defensive  to 
the  offensive,  it  was  defeated.  It  went  beyond 
the  line  of  separation  between  North  and  South 
at  Bull  Run  and  received  its  first  penalty,  re 
peated  again  and  again  till  the  close  of  the  war. 

In  this  same  battle  appears  for  the  first  time 
the  employment  of  the  Shenandoah  Valley  for  a 
strategic  purpose.  A  line  of  mountains  cuts  off 
this  valley  from  Eastern  Virginia  whose  area 
stretches  between  the  two  Capitals.  Thus  the 
Southerners  had  a  flanking  machine  created  by 
Nature  herself,  which  they  used  with  astonishing 
success  till  the  last  months  of  the  War,  when  it 
was  completely  broken  up  by  Sheridan  and  turned 
against  Richmond,  somewhat  as  it  had  been 
turned  against  Washington.  General  J.  E. 
Johnston  works  this  strategic  machine  at  pres 
ent,  and  by  means  of  it  changes  the  tide  of  battle 
at  Bull  Run.  But  the  name  and  fame  of  Stone 
wall  Jackson  are  chiefly  associated  with  its  em 
ployment.  Its  dexterous  manipulation  had  the 
power  of  throwing  the  Federal  army  back  upon 
the  defensive  from  its  offensive  operations  against 
Richmond. 

And  now  let  us  skip  a  little  more  than  a  year 


492         THE  TEN  YE  Alt  &    WAR  —  TAUT  III. 

till  August  30th  1862,  on  which  day  the  second 
battle  of  Bull  Run  is  fought.  McClellan  has 
taken  the  offensive  and  has  wound  up  his  Penin 
sular  campaign ;  the  Seven  Days  Battle  has  been 
fought,  he  has  retreated  to  Harrison's  Landing 
under  the  protection  of  gunboats.  His  attempt 
on  Richmond  has  failed  and  he  has  been  thrown 
back  on  the  defensive.  But  the  worst  failure  is 
himself,  and  his  army  is  withdrawn  from  the 
James  to  the  Potomac.  General  Pope  has 
command  in  front  and  is  badly  defeated  by  Lee. 
Thus  is  repeated  the  same  result  as  in  the  first 
battle  of  Bull  Run.  The  East-Northern  army 
taking  the  offensive  is  overwhelmed  on  every  side 
by  a  smaller  army,  and  driven  back  to  the  de 
fences  of  Washington. 

Moreover,  that  same  strategic  machine  is  put 
to  work  again  with  marvelous  success.  Already 
in  early  May  Jackson  is  rushing  down  the  Shen- 
andoah  Valley  gathering  supplies,  defeating 
Federal  troops,  frightening  Washington  and 
keeping  re-inforcements  from  McClellan.  Then 
he  hurries  back  toward  Richmond  and  takes  part 
in  the  Seven  Days'  Battle  (June  25th  to  July 
1st).  The  siege  being  raised  by  McClellan's 
retreat  and  the  recall  of  his  army,  the  Confed 
erates  start  toward  the  Potomac  with  Lee  at  their 
head,  who  hurls  back  his  antagonist  over  that 
peculiar  line  of  separation  between  the  North  and 


THE  FIRST  WINNING—  1861-2.  4i»3 

South  so  emphatically  marked  already  at  the  first 
battle  of  Bull  Run. 

But  now  rises  for  the  first  time  the  like  prob 
lem  on  the  Confederate  side.  If  Lee  takes  the 
offensive  and  transgresses  that  same  line  of  sep 
aration,  will  he  receive  impartially  the  blow  of 
Nemesis  in  his  turn?  We  shall  watch.  He 
crosses  the  Potomac,  invades  Maryland  and  pro 
poses  to  sweep  still  further  northward,  when  he 
is  met  at  South  Mountain  and  Autietam  by  the 
Federals.  The  result  is  Lee's  army  defeated  re- 
crosses  the  Potomac  and  after  some  delay  is  found 
in  position  behind  the  Ruppahannock.  So  the 
East-Southern  army  has  had  its  experience  of  fail 
ure  underits  greatest  general,  who  has  dared  take 
the  offensive  and  go  beyond  the  fated  line  which 
divides  Union  and  Secession.  Is  it  not  plain,  as 
far  as  these  two  armies  are  concerned,  that 
neither  can  conquer  the  other,  that  the  Union  if 
it  be  won  at  all,  must  be  won  on  other  fields? 
The  same  lesson  is  enforced  anew  in  December 
of  this  year  by  the  battle  of  Fredericksburg  in 
which  the  Federals,  taking  again  the  offensive, 
are  bloodily  repulsed  by  Lee. 

Such  is  the  sanguinary  see-saw  between  these 
two  armies,  during  what  we  may  deem  the  first 
Period  of  the  Great  War,  lying  in  the  main  be 
tween  the  first  Bull  Run  and  Antietam,  and  re 
vealing  the  military  type  of  the  whole  struggle 
in  the  East,  which  we  shall  see  repeating  itself 


494         THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  — PART  III. 

again  and  again  in  the  form  of  this  terrible  pen 
dulum  of  the  Gods  oscillating  victory  and  defeat 
impartially  to  both  sides. 

(c).  We  now  pass  to  the  West-Northern  army 
whose  military  character  is  to  take  the  offensive 
against  its  antagonist.  First  a  battle  line  was 
secured,  somewhat  irregular  to  be  sure,  extend 
ing  from  West  Virginia  along  the  Ohio  river 
through  Missouri  to  Kansas.  In  the  latter  part 
of  1861  this  battle  line  began  to  move  south 
wards,  and  soon  met  the  corresponding  battle 
line  of  the  enemy.  The  opening  victory  was 
won  at  Mill  Spring  in  Eastern  Kentucky,  (Jan. 
19,  1862),  by  General  Thomas.  The  fall  of 
Fort  Henry  on  the  Tennessee  followed  (Feb. 
6th)  ;  then  the  surrender  at  Fort  Donelson  on 
the  Cumberland,  (Feb.  16th),  one  of  the  great 
victories  of  the  war.  The  line,  like  a  long  radi 
us  reaching  out  from  the  center  at  Washington, 
moved  rapidly  into  the  State  of  Tennessee,  whieli 
the  Confederates  abandoned,  taking  up  a  posi 
tion  at  Corinth,  Mississippi,  from  which  point 
they  advanced  and  fought  with  the  Federals  the 
indecisive  battle  of  Shiloh  (April  6-7).  A  chief 
obstruction  in  the  Mississippi  river  was  removed 
by  the  capture  of  Island  No.  10,  with  several 
thousand  prisoners  (April  7th,  second  day  of 
Shiloh).  Through  the  taking  of  New  Orleans 
in  the  last  days  of  this  April,  the  great  river 
might  have  been  opened  all  the  way  to  the  sea, 


THE  FIRST  WINNING  —  1861-2.  495 

as  Vicksburg  had  not  yet  beeii  fortified.  But 
then  comes  delay,  of  which  Halleck  bears  the 
chief  blame,  so  that  another  year  of  fierce  conflict 
passed  before  the  Mississippi  is  cleared  of  all 
hindrance  to  its  navigation.  In  this  campaign 
the  character  of  the  leading  General  (Grant)  on 
the  side  of  the  Union  showed  itself;  also  two 
other  great  commanders  at  this  time  manifested 
their  military  ability — Sherman  and  Thomas. 

A  resurgence  of  the  Confederates  takes  place, 
breaking  over  and  around  the  advanced  line  of 
the  Federals,  and  swelling  up  into  Kentucky, 
almost  reaches  Louisville  and  Cincinnati.  But 
it  is  met  and  the  West-Southern  army  returns 
substantially  within  its  old  line.  This  resur 
gence  takes  place  along  the  whole  battle-line  of 
the  War  East  and  West.  In  September,  1862, 
the  Confederates  have  overrun  central  Kentucky 
quite  to  the  Ohio  River,  and  Lee  has  crossed 
into  Maryland.  This  month  Confederate  fortune 
touches  its  highest  point  during  the  War.  Only 
in  Grant's  line  is  there  no  serious  break,  though 
two  vigorous  attempts  are  made  by  the  enemy 
(atluka  Sept.  19th  and  at  Corinth  Oct.  3). 

Thus  at  the  end  of  this  Period  of  the  War  the 
military  situation  has  declared  itself  in  the  East 
and  West.  In  both  sections  the  strong  Confed- 

O 

erate  resurgence  of  1862  is  met  and  pushed  back 
to  its  old  limits  essentially.  But  there  is  also  a 
decided  difference  between  the  two  sections.  In 


496         THE  TEN  YEARS'1   WAR.  —  PAH  T  III. 

the  East  each  side  is  arrayed  oil  the  same  old 
battle-line  of  separation,  with  nothing  won  by 
the  North ;  in  the  West  the  new  battle-line  is 
kept,  with  all  the  gained  territory  behind  it, 
which  includes  a  large  part  of  the  seceded  Slave- 
States,  Tennessee  and  Arkansas,  as  well  as  the 
whole  of  the  imseceded  Slave-States,  Kentucky 
and  Missouri.  This  we  shall  see  to  be  not  an 
accident,  but  typical  of  what  is  to  come.  The 
outline  of  the  military  movement  of  the  entire 
War  is  distinctly  foredrawn  in  this  first  general 
movement. 

III.  The  Idea  realized  bij  the  Nation.  We 
must  not  leave  out  of  the  historic  process  of  the 
time  that  the  War  in  all  its  great  demands  was 
maintained  by  the  People.  In  fact  the  Folk- 
Soul  made  itself  felt  not  only  at  the  seat  of 
Government  but  also  in  the  armies,  since  there 
was  a  continuous  interflow  between  the  soldier 
and  his  family  at  home.  Nearly  every  North 
erner  in  the  ranks  could  write,  and  of  course  did 
not  fail  to  give  the  echo  of  his  part  of  the  army 
about  commanders,  politics,  and  things  in 
general.  This  epistolary  stream  between  the 
front  and  home  was  very  influential,  even  if  not 
on  the  surface.  It  often  reached  and  revealed 
the  heart  of  the  situation  better  than  the  news 
papers,  which  were  inclined  to  have  their  favor 
ites,  military  as  well  as  political.  The  corre 
spondents  of  the  Press  were  for  the  most  part  at 


THE  FIRST  WINNING  —  1861-2.  497 

the  headquarters  of  the  General,  and  usually 
gave  his  version  or  at  least  his  coloring  to 
events,  which  was  not  always  that  of  the  soldiers. 

The  People  of  the  North  in  spite  of  reverses 
and  discouragements,  stood  as  a  whole  loyally  by 
Lincoln.  The  demands  made  upon  them  were 
certainly  great  —  they  furnished  the  blood,  the 
money  and  the  will. 

(a).  Men  were  called  for  in  great  numbers  to 
offer  their  lives  for  the  Union.  They  could  only 
come  from  the  People,  who  had  to  make  and  did 
make  this  living  sacrifice  willingly  for  the  cause. 
By  the  hundreds  of  thousands  they  were  «required 
and  appeared. 

(b).  Money,  which  stands  for  the  toil  and 
industry  of  the  People,  was  needed  in  vast  quan 
tities,  and  was  always  forthcoming.  Bonds 
were  issued  and  disposed  of  at  home  and  abroad ; 
legal  Tender  was  issued,  a  national  necessity 
even  if  an  economic  folly. 

(c).  The  People's  Will,  expressed  at  the  ballot 
box,  supported  the  measures  of  the  Government. 
Herein  was  shown  the  unique,  transcendent 
power  of  Lincoln.  He  never  appealed  to  the 
Folk-Soul  in  vain,  though  its  response  varied  in 
volume  during  the  four  years  of  War.  The  one 
Will  of  the  President  was  backed  by  the  National 
Will  in  spite  of  his  mistakes.  So  the  People 
gave  him  unstintedly  what  he  wanted  for  attain- 

32 


498          THE  TJSX  YEARS'   WAR.  -  PART  HI. 

ing  his  end,  since  that  was  their  end  as    well  as 
that  of  Civilization. 

Such  is,  then,  the  round  here  manifesting  it 
self  continually :  the  People's  Will  returns  and 
interlinks,  as  it  were,  with  that  of  the  President, 
who  in  his  turn  directs  the  mighty  forces,  the 
army  and  the  navy,  into  fulfilling  the  purpose  of 
the  World-Spirit,  and  then  comes  back  to  the 
original  fountain  of  his  authority,  the  People, 
for  approval  and  renewed  support. 


THE  SECOND   ir/.V.V/A'O  —  18C2-3.  499 


Gbe   Winning  of  tbe   Sece&et> 
Slave  States  (IRew) 

1862-3. 

Already  in  the  previous  Period  the  West- 
Northern  army  had  obtained  a  secure  footing  in 
Tennessee  and  Arkansas  as  well  as  in  Louisiana, 
all  of  them  new  or  derived  Slave-States  which  had 
seceded  from  the  Union.  Seven  of  these  States 
had  gone  out,  and  now  the  whole  seven  are  to  be 
overrun  during  the  present  Period,  which  we  fix 
as  the  second  of  the  War,  including  Vicksburg 
and  Gettysburg  as  its  central  military  events. 
They  foreshadow  the  end  of  the  struggle  and 
seem  the  mighty  response  to  Lincoln's  proclama 
tion  of  emancipation,  as  well  as  its  confirmation. 
Undoubtedly  these  seven  new  Slave-States,  as 
children  of  the  Union  which  they  are  trying  to 
slay,  have  in  them  that  parricidal  strain  already 
mentioned  which  provokes  the  tragic  blow  from 
"the  revenging  Gods"  more  speedily  than  the 
act  of  secession  of  the  old  Slave-States.  They 
are  the  first  of  the  revolted  Commonwealths  to 
be  subdued. 

Lincoln  and  with  him  the  War  and  the  People 
move  out  of  the  preceding  stage  and  take  a  great 
step  forward.  The  attempt  is  still  to  preserve 
the  Union,  but  not  exactly  as  it  was;  it  is  hence- 


500        THE  TEN  YEARS*   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

forth  to  be  an  emancipated  Union,  having  freed 
itself  of  slavery.  It  is  getting  to  be  productive 
of  Free  States  not  merely  out  of  territories,  but 
out  of  Slave-States  new  and  old.  Its  dualism  is 
beginning  to  disappear,  and  it  promises  soon  to 
be  no  longer  half-slave  ©r  half-free. 

I.  The  Idea  formulated.  The  central  Idea  of 
the  present  period  of  the  War  is  now  generally 
recognized  to  be  that  of  Emancipation,  which 
found  its  decisive  expression  in  the  proclamation 
of  January  1st,  1863.  This  may  well  be  deemed 
to  be  the  culminating  act  of  Lincoln  as  voice  not 
only  of  the  Nation  but  of  the  World-Spirit.  It 
expresses  the  doom  of  slavery  in  the  United 
States,  on  the  Western  Continent,  on  the  Globe. 
Europe  and  America  will  extirpate  it  from  those 
countries  of  Asia  in  which  it  still  has  a  foot 
hold.  The  great  world-historical  act  of  Lincoln 
was  this  Proclamation. 

It  was  not  a  sudden  thought,  but  one  of  slow 
growth.  He  knew  from  the  start  that  the  War, 
if  continued,  would  destroy  slavery.  But  the 
People  as  a  whole  had  to  unfold  till  they  were 
ready  to  take  the  step  with  him.  Here  again 
we  see  Lincoln  as  mediator  between  the  Folk- 
Soul  and  the  World-Spirit. 

On  June  22d,  1862,  he  declared  his  purpose 
to  his  cabinet  and  read  his  first  draft.  As  it  was 
a  time  of  depression  in  the  North,  of  defeat  for 
the  Union  armies,  Seward,  though  believing  in 


THE  SECOND  WINNING  —  1862-3.  501 

it,  urged  him  to  wait  for  a  victory  before  he 
sent  it  forth.  Lincoln  acceded  to  this  view, 
and  after  the  battle  of  Antietain  he  published 
his  preliminary  warning  to  the  States  in  rebel 
lion  that  he  would  free  their  slaves  unless  they 
returned  to  their  allegiance  by  January  1st, 
1863.  They  did  not  return,  of  course,  so  on 
that  day  the  Proclamation  went  forth.  He  says 
that  his  paramount  object  was  to  save  the  Union, 
not  to  save  nor  to  destroy  slavery;  that  the 
proclamation  was  a  war-measure  to  which  he  had 
been  forced  to  resort ;  that  it  was  not  the  end 
but  a  means  to  the  end. 

II.  The  Idea  armed.  It  may  be  said  that  the 
Idea  of  the  War  is  now  definitely  uttered;  the 
Union  is  Free-State  producing  universally.  The 
Proclamation  proposes  to  transform  the  Slave- 
State  into  the  Free-State,  and  thus  voices  the  de 
cree  of  the  World-Spirit.  The  result  is  that  the 
Idea  now  gets  armed  and  fairly  to  work;  hence 
in  this  period  take  place  the  decisive  victories  of 
the  War,  and  the  turning-point  toward  the  victor 
ious  outcome  can  be  marked  almost  to  a  day 
(July  4th,  1863,  bringing  the  victories  of  Vicks- 
burg  and  Gettysburg). 

(a).  The  navy  is  doing  more  and  more  effect 
ually  its  preventive  task  in  keeping  foreign  sup 
plies  from  the  Confederacy,  which  thus  revealed 
the  weakness  of  the  former  Southern  policy. 

If  the   South   had  possessed  a   fair  degree    of 


502          THE  TEN  YEARS1  WAR.  —  PART  III. 

economic  independence,  it  would  have  had  a 
much  better  chance  of  winning  political  indepen 
dence.  But  it  had  confined  itself  almost  wholly 
to  agriculture,  and  to  a  few  staples  of  agriculture, 
cotton,  sugar,  rice.  The  Gulf  States  had  been 
largely  fed  from  the  North,  and  were  possessed 
of  no  manufacturing  works.  The  missing  food 
it  could  supply,  but  not  the  missing  mechanical 
industries.  Yet  the  South  in  the  beginning 
thought  that  it  dominated  the  whole  economic 
world  of  Europe  and  America  through  its  cotton. 
The  navy  in  this  period  has  brought  home  to  the 
Southern  States  the  shortsightedness  of  their 
economic  system. 

(&).  The  military  movement  of  this  Period  is 
still  essentially  defensive  in  the  East,  and  brings 
out  the  former  see-saw  repeating  its  bloody 
work.  The  attempts  of  Burnside  at  Fredericks- 
burg,  Dec.  13th,  1862,  and  of  Hooker  at  Chan- 
celorsville,  May  1st  to  4th,  1863,  show  the  East- 
Northern  army  taking  the  offensive,  and  over 
whelmingly  repulsed.  Again  they  sought  to 
cross  that  invisible  line  drawn  between  the 
North  and  South  of  the  Old-Thirteen,  and  re 
ceived  a  blow  more  severe  than  ever  before. 
The  warning  written  in  the  blood  of  thousands 
seems  to  rise  from  that  line  of  separation  and 
speak  in  a  kind  of  wrath  the  decree  from  above. 

It  is  now  the  turn  for  the  East-Southern 
Army  to  try  its  fortune  by  crossing  that  same 


THE  SECOND  WINNING—  1862-3.  503 

fateful  Hue.  Will  Lee  take  the  offensive  again 
and  invade  the  North?  And  if  he  does  will  he 
meet  that  same  blow  so  impartially  delivered  by 
Nemesis  to  either  when  it  transgresses  the  pro 
hibited  line?  Let  us  see.  In  about  a  month 
after  Chancelorsville  Lee  starts  his  army,  sending 
into  the  Shenandoah  Valley  to  work  the  strategic 
machine  the  corps  of  General  Ewell,  as  Stone 
wall  Jackson  had  been  killed.  Toward  the  end 
of  June  Lee's  whole  army  crossed  the  Potomac 
into  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania.  In  this  last 
State  was  fought  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  (July 
1-3),  the  result  of  which  was  a  repulse  for  Lee, 
and  a  retreat  back  into  Virginia.  Again  he  is 
allowed  to  take  substantially  his  old  position  in 
front  of  the  Federals. 

Thus  is  re-enacted  the  same  general  movement 
which  we  have  already  seen  repeatedly  in  the 
East.  Neither  army  there  can  conquer  the 
other ;  more  and  more  emphatic  has  become  the 
line  of  separation  dividing  the  Union,  at  least  as 
far  as  the  Old-Thirteen  are  concerned. 

(c.)  For  relief  we  again  have  to  look  at  the 
West-Northern  army  which  still  is  keeping  up  its 
name  of  taking  the  offensive  against  the  enemy 
with  success.  It  moves  forward  under  Grant  and 
captures  Vicksburg,  thereby  opening  the  Mis 
sissippi,  since  Port  Hudson  falls  with  Vicksburg. 
Thus  the  Confederacy  is  cut  in  two,  and  the 


504  THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  Til. 

western  line  of  battle  is  ready  to  sweep  east 
ward  around  its  circle. 

The  time  and  the  situation  compel  a  compari 
son  between  Gettysburg  and  Vicksburg.  Pri 
marily  the  one  on  part  of  the  North  is  a  defen 
sive  act  in  general  and  in  particular ;  the  other  is 
an  offensive  act  in  general  and  in  particular.  In 
the  one  case  the  North  is  invaded  and  an  unse- 
ceded  Free-State  is  the  battle-ground;  in  the 
other  the  South  is  invaded  and  a  seceded  Slave- 
State  is  the  battle  ground.  Gettysburg  says 
that  Secession  cannot  conquer  the  North,  but 
Vicksburg  says  that  the  North  can  conquer  Se 
cession.  The  one  is  at  best  a  negative  act, 
hindering  another  deeply  negative  act  but  not 
destroying  its  doer  and  thereby  preventing  repeti 
tion  ;  the  other  is  a  positive  act,  tackling  Seces 
sion  in  its  home  and  undoing  its  power. 

The  present  Period  includes  another  offensive 
movement  of  the  West-Northern  army,  which 
wheels  on  its  pivot  and  sweeps  to  Chattanooga, 
where  is  the  gateway  to  the  Southern  States  of 
the  Old  Thirteen.  Grant  reached  there  Oct.  23, 
1863.  The  battle  of  Missionary  Ridge  (Nov. 
25th)  ended  in  the  total  defeat  of  the  Confeder 
ates,  who  had  now  lost  substantially  all  of  the 
new  (or  derived)  Slave-States  which  went  into 
Secession.  It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  the  four 
greatest  generals  whom  the  North  produced  dur 
ing  the  war,  participated  in  this  series  of  battles 


THE  XECOXD  WIXNIXG  —  1862-3.  505 

around  Chattanooga.  They  were  Grant,  Sher 
man,  Thomas,  and  also  Sheridan,  who  was  in 
command  of  a  division. 

III.  The  Idea  realized  by  the  Nation.  Here 
we  must  again  take  note  of  the  People,  that  orig 
inal  protoplasm  out  of  which  everything  in  this 
War  and  every  War  is  to  be  formed.  First  of  all 
the  men  to  do  the  fighting  were  furnished,  on  the 
whole  with  readiness,  though  with  opposition  in 
localities.  Money  too  was  forthcoming,  yet  the 
financial  burden  was  very  heavy,  and  the  fluctu 
ations  in  the  price  of  gold  followed  the  ups  and 
downs  of  the  army.  The  most  peculiar  fact  of 
the  economic  situation  is  that  property  advances, 
trade  flourishes,  and  even  population  increases  in 
the  North  along  with  the  enormous  expenditures 
of  blood  and  treasure.  The  Secretary  of  War 
makes  a  strong  point  in  his  annual  report  which 
speaks  of  our  former  dependence  on  foreign 
nations  for  arms  and  munitions,  whereas  ««  now 
(1863-4)  all  these  things  are  manufactured  at 
home  and  we  are  independent  of  foreign  nations 
not  only  for  the  manufactures,  but  also  for  the 
materials  of  which  they  are  composed."  Thus 
the  War  is  having  a  new  and  unexpected  effect 
upon  the  North,  making  it  self-sufficing  in  the 
matter  of  supplying  its  own  wants,  and  endow 
ing  it  with  economic  independence. 

The  fullest  and  most  pointed  account  which 
Lincoln  renders  to  the  People  in  regard  to  his 


506  THE  TE\r  TEAKS'    ]VAIi.  —  J'AIiTIIL 

stewardship,  is  contained  in  his  letter  to  a  mass 
meeting  of  his  friends  at  his  home  in  Springfield. 
The  letter  is  dated  August  26th,  1863.  He 
convincingly  shows  that  only  two  kinds  of  peace 
are  possible,  with  or  without  Union.  There  is 
no  compromise  or  middle  way;  the  peace  party 
is  pursuing  a  delusion,  since  the  South  is  fighting 
for  absolute  separation.  Lincoln  also  defends 
his  Proclamation  as  a  war  measure  and  buttresses 
it  with  some  facts,  declaring  that  it  cannot  be 
retracted.  **  For  the  great  republic,  for  the 
principle  which  it  lives  by  and  keeps  alive  —  for 
man's  vast  future  —  thanks  to  all"  who  have 
been  willing  to  give  their  efforts,  and  their  lives 
if  need  be,  to  bring  about  the  grand  result.  To 
such  an  appeal  with  its  keen-edged  logic  which 
at  times  breaks  over  into  lofty  poetic  utterance, 
the  response  of  the  people  was  immediate  and 
overwhelming.  Of  this  the  most  significant  in 
stance  was  the  defeat  of  Vallandighani  in  Ohio 
for  Governor  by  a  majority  of  more  than  a  hun 
dred  thousand.  Still  there  were  unjustifiable 
things  done  in  this  Period  by  some  military  com 
manders,  such  as  suppression  of  newspapers, 
arbitrary  arrests  for  free  speech,  and  suspension 
of  Habeas  Corpus  where  there  was  no  need  of 
it.  Few  if  any  of  these  acts  can  be  traced  di 
rectly  to  Lincoln,  who,  however,  felt  that  he  had 
to  support  his  subordinates,  particularly  in  cases 


THE  SECOND  WINNING  —  1862-3  507 

in  which   it  seemed    more  necessary   to  uphold 
authority  than  to  correct  a  mistake. 

In  such  fashion  we  mark  off  the  second  Period 
of  the  War  with  its  process,  in  which  the  new  or 
derived  Slave-States  which  went  into  Secession, 
are  brought  back  into  the  Union  by  power,  not 
being  permitted  to  stay  out  both  for  their  own 
sake  and  for  the  sake  of  the  grand  totality  of 
States,  North  and  South.  Moreover  this  idea  of 
an  emancipated  Union  has  been  voiced  by  the 
President,  made  victorious  by  arms  and  adopted 
by  the  People.  A  great  stride,  not  only  of  the 
Nation,  but  of  the  World's  History,  we  think; 
with  high  hope  we  can  turn  to  the  final  act. 


508  THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.  —  PART  III. 


Winning  of  tbe  Sece&efc 
Slave^Statee 

1864-5. 


The  last  great  sweep  of  the  War,  the  third 
Period  of  it,  as  we  look  at  it,  has  been  reached. 
General  Sherman  has  said  that  the  War  pro 
fessionally  began  after  Gettysburg  and  Vicks- 
burg,  and  that  military  science  was  then  for  the 
first  time  applied  in  a  thorough  manner.  Un 
doubtedly  the  years  had  furnished  their  expe 
rience,  and  the  conduct  of  battles  and  cam 
paigns  was  more  scientific.  Still  the  fact 
persists  that  this  last  Period  has  substantially 
the  same  process  underlying  it  as  the  two  Periods 
already  considered,  the  same  fluctuations  of  de 
feat  and  victory,  the  same  military  character  of 
the  movements  in  the  East  and  in  the  West, 
with  the  same  general  results.  The  East- 
Northern  army  fights  again  over  that  bloody 
area  between  the  two  capitals,  and  makes  it 
more  bloody  than  ever;  the  line  of  separation 
is  drawn  afresh  with  an  emphasis  which  seems 
final.  The  West-Northern  army  in  its  turn 
starts  on  its  customary  offensive  career,  but  in 
another  sort  of  territory.  Hitherto  it  has  been 
confined  to  the  new  or  derived  Slave-States 
which  have  seceded.  But  now  it  breaks  over 


THE   THIED   WINNING  —  1864-5,  509 

into  a  different  field  of  rebellion,  into  the  old 
Slave-States  which  seceded,  but  which  have  not 
yet  felt  the  presence  of  actual  war  at  their  doors. 
This  must  be  the  last  act  of  the  great  drama. 
That  circular  movement,  which,  starting  from 
the  North-West,  has  swept  victoriously  down  the 
Mississippi  and  then  eastward  to  Chattanooga, 
is  about  to  enter  upon  its  last  curve,  which  ir 
regularly  cuts  through  Georgia,  South  Caro 
lina  into  North  Carolina,  when  the  war  closes. 

Following  in  the  track  of  the  West-Northern 
army  is  a  new  stage  of  the  political  development 
of  the  War:  Reconstruction.  If  the  second 
Period  gave  us  an  emancipated  Union,  the  pres 
ent  third  Period  is  to  start  into  existence  a  re 
constructed  Union.  This  also  is  the  work  of 
Lincoln.  Emancipation  having  become  a  fact, 
the  slower  and  more  difficult  task  of  restoring 
these  seceded  States  to  the  new  Union  is  to  fol 
low.  Thus  the  political  process  involved  in  the 
War  will  have  completed  itself.  We  recollect 
that  the  first  stage  was  the  preservation  of  the 
Union,  the  second  was  its  emancipation,  the  third 
is  now  to  be  its  regeneration  and  restoration,  usu 
ally  called  its  reconstruction.  This  last  work, 
however,  Lincoln  will  not  live  to  finish,  though 
he  makes  a  good  beginning. 

We  shall  now  for  the  third  and  last  time  out 
line  that  process  which  we  have  found  determin 
ing  the  entire  conflict. 


510  THE   TEX  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  III. 

I.  The  Idea  Formulated.  More  and  more 
Lincoln  becomes  the  voice  of  the  Period.  He  is 
nominated  a  second  time  for  the  Presidency  and 
is  elected  triumphantly  by  the  People.  His 
thought  is  now  specially  to  bring  the  Slave-States 
back  into  the  Union,  emancipated  and  recon 
structed.  He  urges  unseceded  Slave-States  to 
make  movements  toward  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
Then  he  seeks  in  every  way  to  cause  the  adoption 
of  the  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  prohibit 
ing  slavery — the  Thirteenth  Amendment. 

In  this  part  of  his  work  we  see  him  trying  to 
evoke  the  State-making  instinct  of  the  Southern 
People  who  are  to  build  anew  the  local  govern 
ments  in  the  seceded  States  occupied  by  the  Fed 
eral  army.  Particularly  in  Louisiana,  Arkansas 
and  Tennessee  he  endeavors  to  bring  the  citizens 
to  undo  the  work  of  Secession.  He  is  careful  not 
to  dictate,  he  distinctly  declines  to  re-make  the 
State  governments  by  an  autocratic  exercise  of 
power.  To  be  sure  one  condition  is  put  upon 
them:  the  abolition  of  slavery.  Thus  even  the 
Slave-State  is  transformed,  is  brought  first  to 
make  itself  free,  and  thus  becomes  Free-State 
producing.  This  is  the  essence  of  Lincoln's 
Reconstruction:  these  Slave-States,  hitherto  in 
rebellion,  must  show  themselves  in  their  own 
case  productive  of  the  Free-State  ;  then  they  can 
come  back  and  live  harmoniously  in  the  new 
Union  which  is  Free-State  producing  only.  It 


THE  THIRD   WINNING  —  1864-5.  511 

is  Reconstruction,  therefore,  which  is  to  bring 
about  that  inner  homogeneity  of  the  Union, 
which  removes  the  original  ground  of  separation. 

At  this  point,  however,  Lincoln  encountered 
opposition  in  his  own  party.  Sumner  in  par 
ticular  insisted  upon  unlimited  negro  suffrage  as 
a  condition  of  restoring  the  seceded  States  to 
their  place  in  the  Union.  Lincoln  became 
afraid  of  Congress,  of  its  radicals,  who  really 
sought  to  destroy  the  South 's  Statehood,  which 
he  would  "  reanimate,  "  and  whose  governments 
he  would  "get  in  successful  operation  before 
Congress  comes  together  in  December."  Says 
he  as  reported  by  Welles:  "  There  is  too  much 
of  a  desire  on  the  part  of  our  very  good  friends 
to  be  masters"  —  the  grand  fatality  of  the 
South,  for  which  indeed  it  has  received  the 
penalty.  Now  the  love  of  domination  is  getting 
hold  of  the  North  in  spite  of  Lincoln,  who  sees 
the  danger  of  his  own  party  acquiring  that  same 
spirit  of  arrogance  so  fateful  to  the  South,  and 
of  falling  into  the  same  transgression  in  turn, 
with  the  consequent  punishment. 

So  Lincoln  has  begun  to  formulate  the  Idea 
of  Reconstruction,  and  to  bring  it  before  the 
People  in  spite  of  Congressional  opposition. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  he  would  have  again 
won  the  Folk-Soul  to  his  plan,  if  had  lived  to 
develop  it  fully  and  to  carry  it  out.  Indeed  the 
probability  is  that  he  would  have  gained  the  best 


512          THE  TEN  YEARS'    WAR.  —  PART  III. 

of  the  Southern  leaders  for  his  work,  and  have 
spared  the  Nation  the  painful  period  of  Congres 
sional  Reconstruction  after  the  war.  Still  his 
Idea  despite  some  years  of  obstruction  wrought 
itself  out  to  completeness,  and  made  the  Slave- 
State  not  only  a  Free-State  but  also  Free-State 
producing,  as  a  member  of  the  Union. 

II.  The  Idea  armed.  This  still  shows  the 
same  general  process  as  before,  having  the  same 
three  implements,  which  we  have  named  the  pre 
ventive,  the  defensive,  and  the  offensive. 

(a).  The  task  of  prevention  has  already  been 
described  as  allotted  to  the  navy,  and  its  work 
lies  on  the  watery  element.  During  this  Period 
however,  it  takes  the  offensive  also  and  captures 
the  defences  of  Mobile  as  its  chief  prize.  The 
blockade  was  always  getting  more  effective. 

The  gun-boats  of  the  western  rivers  were 
closely  connected  with  the  military  department, 
co-operating  chiefly  with  the  armies  in  the  field. 
Thus  they  rendered  the  greatest  service  in  open 
ing  the  Mississippi  and  its  affluents  and  keeping 
them  open.  Also  they  took  an  important  part 
in  the  battles  fought  on  the  banks  of  navigable 
streams,  as  at  Donelson,  Shiloh,  and  many  other 
places. 

(6).  Now  we  are  to  witness  a  new  phase  in  the 
career  of  the  East-Northern  army.  General 
Grant,  the  successful  commander  in  the  West, 
is  to  try  his  hand  on  that  uncanny  piece  of  Vir- 


THE  THIRD  WINNING  —  1864-5.  513 

ginia  soil,  which  has  been  so  deadly  to  supreme 
chieftains  as  well  as  common  soldiers.  The  past 
compels  the  query :  Will  he  be  able  to  change 
that  which  has  hitherto  seemed  the  pre-destined 
course  of  things?  Can  he  bring  that  East- 
Northern  army  to  take  the  offensive  without  get 
ting  the  furious  back-stroke  already  so  often 
delivered  ? 

Let  us  see.  Grant  crosses  the  Rapidan  and 
on  May  5th  begins  the  battle  of  the  Wilderness. 
What  can  it  be  called  but  a  sanguinary  defeat? 
Still  Grant  hammers  away  at  the  very  walls  of 
Fate,  and  on  May  llth  sends  his  famous  dis 
patch  back  to  Washington :  ' '  I  propose  to  fight  it 
out  on  this  line  if  it  takes  all  summer."  He  seems 
to  have  become  conscious  of  that  line  of  separa 
tion  in  the  East  which  he  thinks  he  can  cross  as 
he  did  in  the  West.  So  he  still  keeps  hammer 
ing  away  at  the  line  for  three  weeks  longer, 
when  the  last  attack  is  made  at  Cold  Harbor 
with  appalling  bloodshed.  The  command  is 
given  for  another  assault,  but  the  soldiers  refuse 
to  stir,  and  General  Grant  has  found  a  limit 
which  he  never  touched  before,  and  which  he 
seemed  to  think  did  not  exist.  He  loses  during 
the  campaign  more  men  than  Lee  had  at  the 
start,  and  neither  destroys  Lee's  army  nor  cap 
tures  Eichmond.  It  must  be  pronounced  the 
greatest  failure  of  the  war,  and  from  it  Grant's 
military  reputation  has  never  recovered.  He 

33 


514          THE  TEN  YKAllS'    WAIL— PART  III, 

moves  south  of  the  James  and  takes  up  the  same 
general  position  which  McClellan  reached  in 
1862.  Thus  the  commander  who  does  not  fight 
and  the  commander  who  fights  reach  the  same 
point  locally,  and  the  line  of  separation  in  the 
East  is  drawn  more  emphatically  than  ever. 
Even  Grant  the  bull-dog  has  to  let  go,  in  spite 
of  his  resolution  "to  fight  it  out  on  this  line  if 
it  takes  all  summer."  The  bloody  see-saw  has 
repeated  itself,  only  far  bloodier  than  ever  be 
fore. 

To  complete  the  correspondence  with  the  two 
formerPeriods,  the  strategic  machine  of  the  Shen- 
andoah  Valley  is  again  set  to  work  by  the  Con 
federates.  General  Early  with  his  army  arrived 
at  Winchester,  July  2d;  thence  he  crossed  into 
Maryland,  putting  to  flight  opposing  forces. 
Washington  had  its  usual  scare  along  with  Bal 
timore  and  Harrisburg.  But  somehow  again  that 
old  fatality  smites  the  invaders  in  their  turn,  they 
have  transgressed  the  limit  and  seem  strangely 
paralyzed.  Fully  20,000  Confederate  veterans  un 
der  Early  and  Breckinridge  had  the  choice  of  the 
Capital  or  Baltimore, and,  like  the  ass  of  Buridan, 
could  not  take  either.  Meantime  Federal  troops 
began  pouring  into  Washington  from  the  South, 
and  the  enemy  retreated  into  Virginia.  The 
same  epithet  can  be  applied  to  both  sides  in  the 
affair:  Utter  incompetency.  But  now  comes 
the  supreme  act  of  Grant  in  his  Eastern  career; 


THE  TI1IIW  WINNING—  18G4-5.  515 

he  sends  Sheridan,  whom  he  had  called  from  the 
West  to  the  command  of  the  cavalry  in  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac,  to  take  charge  of  the  Shenan- 
doah  Valley.  This  officer,  after  defeating  Early 
in  several  pitched  battles,  will  smash  to  smither 
eens  the  strategic  machine,  doing  as  the  last  act 
what  ought  to  have  been  done  first.  He  will 
even  use  the  valley  as  a  means  of  approach 
toward  Richmond,  after  having  been  employed 
so  long  just  the  other  way. 

For  the  present,  then,  we  shall  again  have  to 
turn  away  from  the  two  opposing  armies  of  the 
East,  Northern  and  Southern,  with  that  invisible 
line  of  separation  drawn  between  them  as  impas 
sible  as  ever. 

(c).  In  the  spring  of  1864  the  West-Northern 
army  is  starting  on  a  campaign  against  the  old 
Slave-States  which  have  seceded.  It  enters  the 
upper  part  of  Georgia,  and  moves  victoriously 
along  a  line  of  battles  to  Atlanta,  which  it  cap 
tures  (Sept.  2nd).  Soon  it  divides;  one  part  of 
it  under  Thomas  remains  behind  to  look  after  the 
Confederates  under  Hood;  the  other  part  under 
Sherman  starts  November  12th  for  Savannah, 
and  reaches  this  city  December  10th.  Thomas 
wins  the  battle  of  Nashville  (December  15-16), 
routing  Hood's  army  and  pursuing  its  fragments 
into  the  far  South.  This  has  been  declared  the 
best-fought  battle  of  the  War,  and  the  fame  of 
Thomas  has  steadily  increased  since  it  took  place. 


516  THE  TEN  TEAKS'   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

The  result  is  that  in  all  the  new  seceded  Slave- 
States  there  is  no  army  capable  of  taking  the 
field  against  the  Federals. 

The  other  grand  division  of  the  West-North 
ern  army  under  Sherman,  fulfilling  its  function 
of  bringing  the  War  home  to  the  old  seceded 
Slave-States,  starts  from  Savannah  and  plunges 
into  South  Carolina,  regarded  as  the  home  of 
Secession.  There  is  no  doubt  that  a  feeling  of 
retaliation  was  perceptible  in  that  army.  Charles 
ton  was  burnt,  catching  fire  from  the  blazing 
cotton  which  the  Confederates  were  destroying. 
Columbia  was  also  burnt;  by  whose  hands  the 
conflagration  was  kindled  is  a  question  still  under 
dispute.  Drunken  negroes,  Sherman's  bum 
mers,  Wheeler's  cavalrymen,  who  also  are 
known  to  have  done  some  plundering,  have  all 
been  blamed.  One  thing  is  certain:  the  Furies 
from  all  sides,  not  excepting  the  Southern,  seem 
to  be  lighting  down  on  South  Carolina,  and  fljiy- 
inw  her  in  vengeful  wrath.  Sherman  in  South 

r?  o 

Carolina  is  the  most  impressive  object-lesson  of 
the  War.  A  mighty  irresistible  mass  is  let 
loose  upon  the  whole  State  with  no  appreciable 
power  of  resistance.  The  South  itself  could 
hardly  help  recognizing  the  return  of  the  deed, 
and  seeing  the  shot  at  Sumter  shot  back  thous 
andfold  over  the  State .  All  society  seems  dissolv 
ing,  Nemesis  is  in  control  and  appears  bent  on 
wreaking  retribution,  the  cycle  of  human  action 


THE  THIRD  WINKING  —  1864-5.  517 

insists  on  rounding  itself  out  to  the  full.  What 
did  South  Carolina  herself  think  at  this  awful 
apparition?  She  could  hardly  help  going  back 
four  years  and  interlinking  in  one  chain  first 
and  last.  But  let  this  fact  be  added  :  she  was 
by  no  means  destroyed,  but  rather  helped  by  the 
visitation ;  her  population  has  doubled  since 
then,  and  her  wealth  much  more  than  doubled. 
The  war's  vengeance  upon  her  was  really  what 
saved  her,  destroying  her  destroyer,  of  course 
against  her  will. 

Thus  the  West-Northern  Army  has  completed 
its  circular  sweep  and  has  practically  assailed 
Richmond  from  the  rear,  rendering  further  help 
impossible,  and  taking  away  the  sustenance  from 
Lee's  soldiers.  Its  offensive  career  has  brought 

o 

it  quite  to  the  Capital  of  the  Confederacy,  which 
now  falls  before  the  Array  of  the  Potomac.  That 
fateful  line  of  separation  from  which  it  has  been 
so  often  driven  back,  is  now  obliterated,  and  is 
crossed  for  the  first  time  by  it  in  the  last  great 
battle  of  the  War.  So  our  defensive  army  has 
finally  become  offensive  and  is  crowned  with  suc 
cess  ;  from  this  point  of  view  it  has  gotten  a  new 
character  corresponding  with  that  of  the  West- 
Northern  host  now  near  at  hand. 

As  Sherman's  army  moved  into  North  Caro 
lina  there  was  in  it  a  perceptible  change  of  feel 
ing,  since  that  State  belonged  to  the  second  Tier 
of  seceded  States,  and  was  almost  forced  out  of 


518          THE  TEX  YKAES'   WAR.  —  PART  III. 

the  Union  by  the  conduct  of  Virginia.  But  the 
great  fact  is  that  the  West-Northern  army  in  its 
various  branches  has  marched  through  and 

O 

holds  in  its  power  ten  of  the  eleven  seceded  States, 
narrowing  the  rebellion  mainly  to  a  part  of  Vir 
ginia.  Then  Sherman  is  stopped  in  his  advance 
northward  toward  Kichrnoud  and  goes  to  City 
Point  for  a  conference  with  Grant  and  Lincoln" 
(March  27-8).  "One  more  hard  battle  will  have 
to  be  fought,"  is  the  opinion  of  both  generals. 
The  silent  Grant  is  resolved  to  fight  that  battle 
with  the  army  of  the  Potomac.  Two  days  after 
Sheridan  is  at  Five  Forks  and  in  ten  days  occurs 
the  surrender  at  Appomattox.  Nine  days  later, 
General  Johnston,  following  Lee's  example, 
surrenders  to  Sherman  in  North  Carolina. 

III.  The  Idea  realized  by  the  Nation.  The 
supreme  manifestation  of  the  People's  approval 
of  Lincoln  and  his  work  took  place  on  that  No 
vember  day  when  he  was  re-elected  President  of 
United  States  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  In 
the  most  unequivocal  manner  the  Folk-Soul  put 
its  seal  upon  what  he  had  done  and  upon  his 
character.  Of  this  indeed  he  was  well  aware. 
Says  he  in  his  message,  Dec.  6th,  1864:  "The 
most  reliable  indication  of  public  purpose  in  this 
country  is  derived  through  popular  elections." 
The  Will  of  the  People  expressed  by  the  ballot 
had  indeed  adopted  his  acts  as  their  own,  and 
he  felt  that  to  be  the  true  harmony  of  his  life.  Well 


THE  THIRD   WINNING  —  1864-5.  519 

could  he  declare  that  the  purpose  of  the  People 
within  the  loyal  States  to  maintain  the  integrity 
of  the  Union  was  never  more  firm  or  more  nearly 
unanimous  than  now,  after  nearly  four  years  of 
fighting.  Lincoln  also  noted  that  there  were 
more  votes  cast  in  1864  than  in  1860  in  spite  of 
the  great  drain  of  the  War.  "We  have  more 
meo  now  than  we  had  when  the  War  began ; 
we  are  not  exhausted  nor  in  the  process  of  ex 
haustion."  Moreover  the  public  debt,  though 
great,  "is  held  for  the  most  part  by  our  own 
people,"  and  should  be  as  nearly  as  possible  dis 
tributed  among  all.  "Men  readily  perceive  that 
they  cannot  be  much  oppressed  by  a  debt  which 
they  owe  to  themselves."  At  the  same  time  the 
President  re-affirms  that  "I  shall  not  attempt  to 
retract  or  modify  the  Emancipation  Proclama 
tion." 

At  a  serenade  Lincoln  dwelt  upon  the  deeper 
side  of  the  recent  election,  which  he  looked  upon 
as  the  hardest  test  of  free  institutions.  "It  has 
demonstrated  that  a  People's  Government  can 
sustain  a  national  election  in  the  midst  of  a  great 
civil  war.  Until  now,  it  has  not  been  known 
that  this  was  a  possibility."  Hitherto  civil 
war  has  called  out  the  strong  hand  of  the  mili 
tary  dictator  who  has  suppressed  liberty.  But  a 
new  event  has  been  enrolled  on  the  pages  of  the 
World's  History :  the  free  exercise  of  popular 
suffrage  in  the  heat  of  internecine  strife.  It  is 
probable  that  somebody  had  suggested  to  Lincoln 


520         THE  TEN  YEAR S>   WAE.  —  PAPTI1L 

to  put  off  the  election  till  a  time  of  peace,  but  he 
answers,  "if  the  rebellion  could  force  us  to  fore 
go  or  postpone  a  national  election,  it  might  fair 
ly  claim  to  have  already  conquered  and  ruined 
us"  —  which  seems  to  carry  in  it  an  admonition 
to  some  headstrong  military  men.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  Lincoin  was  keenly  alive  to  the  dan 
ger-signal  erected  by  History,  ancient  and  mod 
ern,  and  pointing  warningly  at  the  great  and 
successful  general.  But  in  his  conception  the 
supreme  act  of  a  free  Government  was  that  the 
People  should  by  their  ballots  stamp  the  ruler's 
Will  as  their  own.  Lincoln  lived  in  and  through 
and  for  the  Folk-Soul,  without  whose  confirma 
tion  and  sympathy  he  could  not  think  of  exer 
cising  power. 

Thus  Lincoln  felt  and  saw  the  Idea  of  the 
Age,  the  Decree  of  the  World-Spirit,  saw  it  real 
ized  by  the  Nation,  having  been  himself  the  chief 
instrument  of  such  realization.  On  this  height 
we  behold  him  a  few  months  before  his  death 
viewing  the  Promised  Land  to  which  he  had  led 
his  People,  but  which  he  is  destined  not  to  enter. 
Still  the  cycle  of  his  career  is  complete.  That 
prophecy  of  his,  striking  so  clearly  and  pro 
foundly  the  key-note  of  his  whole  public  life 
and  of  the  age,  has  been  fulfilled:  "I  believe 
this  Government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the 
Union  to  be  dissolved,  but  I  do  expect  it  will 
cease  to  be  divided." 


RETROSPECT.  521 


IRetrospect 

There  can  be  DO  true  conception  of  History 
unless  its  movement  in  Periods  is  seen,  and  not 
only  seen,  but  made  an  integral  part  of  our 
thought,  nay  of  our  very  Self-hood.  Events  are 
not  and  cannot  be  understood  till  they  are  be 
held  unfolding  in  harmony  with  the  law  of  our 
own  consciousness.  Historiography  leaves  much 
to  be  desired,  if  it  is  satisfied  simply  with  record 
ing  events  successively  in  Time,  or  throwing  them 
together  into  external  divisions  usually  called 
chapters.  Rightly  to  periodize  History  is  the 
profoundest  task  of  the  historian.  He  is  to 
bring  out  the  one  supreme  process  of  his.  total 
theme,  and  interlink  with  it  all  the  lesser  pro 
cesses,  which  not  only  compose  it,  but  reflect  it 
in  the  small  and  smallest.  We  shall  according- 
ingly,  in  this  our  final  retrospective  act,  look 
back  at  the  periodicity  which  runs  through  the 
whole  work,  and  orders  the  occurrences  of  the 
time  into  one  great  totality  as  well  as  into  its 
many  subdivisions. 

It  may  be  said  that  in  this  way  the  man  of 
thought,  contemplating  the  outer  events  of  an 
epoch,  enters  into  and  communes  with  the  Gen 
ius  of  History,  with  that  Spirit  which  \ve  have 


522         THE  TEN  YEARS1   WAR.— PART  III. 

often  sought  to  glimpse  iii  the  foregoing  ac 
count,  and  which  has  been  repeatedly  called  the 
World-Spirit,  into  whose  workshop  (so  to  speak) 
we  have  now  and  then  peeped  for  the  purpose  of 
limning  some  feature  of  that  grand  Artificer 
who  manifests  himself  in  the  historic  acts  of 
States  and  of  their  Great  Men. 

1.  With  the  surrender  of  the  Confederates  un 
der  Lee  and   Johnston  in  the    spring  of    1865, 
armed  resistance  to  the  restoration  of  the  Union 
has    substantially    ceased,   and  the  Idea  of   the 
North,  enforced  by  the  naval  and  military  pow 
ers,  and    wrestling  so    long   and  so  desperately 
with   its  foe,  has  triumphed  and  proceeds  to  its 
full  realization.     So  the  Period  of  national  War 
lasting  four  years  comes  to  a  close. 

The  movement  of  this  Period  must  be  seen  to 
be  toward  Ke-union,  out  of  the  preceding  Period 
of  Dis-union,  in  which  the  trend  was  toward  a 
dissolution  of  the  federation  of  States  (  1858-61). 
Thus  the  nature  of  the  whole  time  is  the  getting 
back,  even  by  force  at  first,  to  that  from  which 
there  has  been  a  separation.  We  behold,  ac 
cordingly,  a  return  to  what  had  before  existed, 
namely,  the  Union,  which  however,  must  be  a 
new  Union,  having  taken  up  into  itself  and  over 
come  its  own  deeply  separative  character. 

2.  We  have,  therefore,  to   emphasize  that  the 
Great  War  looked  at  by  itself,  is  but  a  part  or 
sta^e  of  a  still  larger    process,   which  it    indeed 


EETEOSPECT.  523 

completes.  This  is  the  Ten  Years'  War,  which 
began  on  the  plains  of  Kansas  in  1855  with  the 
first  invasion  of  the  Missourians  for  the  pur 
pose  of  making  the  adjacent  "Territory  a  Slave- 
State.  To  such  a  purpose  there  is  a  strong  and 
obstinate  resistance  on  the  part  of  the  settlers, 
and  we  behold  the  first  part  or  stage  of  the  con 
flict  which  is  destined  to  last  a  decade. 

Moreover  we  now  hear  the  thought  or  the 
theme  of  the  whole  Ten  Years'  War  distinctly 
enounced  in  its  simplest  form :  There  shall  be 
no  more  Slave-States.  To  be  sure  the  hardy 
Kansans  fought  to  keep  their  own  Territory 
from  the  clutch  of  slavery,  they  had  enough  to 
do  without  thinking  much  about  the  future  of 
other  Territories.  But  the  North,  not  being 
engaged  directly  in  the  struggle  and  having  the 
opportunity  to  think  the  matter  over,  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  Congress  can  and  should  ex 
clude  slavery  from  the  public  domain  of  the 
United  States  (expressed  in  the  vote  for  Fre 
mont,  1856).  Thus  the  popular  conciousness of 
the  North  begins  to  reach  the  conviction  that  the 
Union  must  henceforth  be  productive  of  Free- 
States  only.  The  Slave-States  already  existent 
can  remain  as  they  are  and  develop  as  they  may ; 
but  hereafter  their  reproduction  must  cease  in  our 
Union. 

The  mentioned  exception  also  will  in  time  be 
shorn  away,  and  the  Government,  in  its  su- 


524          THE  TEN  TEARS'    WAB.  -  PART  III. 

preme  genetic  act  supported  by  armies, 
transform  the  already  exiscent  Slave-States, 
making  them  free,  and  thus  apply  its  new  prin 
ciple  to  the  past  as  well  as  to  the  I'uture.  The 
theorem  or  formula  of  the  whole  Ten  Years'  War 
now  comes  to  light  in  its  fullness  and  may  be 
stated  as  follows :  The  Union  is  to  be  made 
Free-State  producing  universally.  In  its  deepest 
act,  which  is  the  genesis  of  States,  such  it  will 
be;  of  course  it  will  do  other  important  things 
also.  When  such  a  Union  is  fairly  established, 
the  Ten  Years'  War,  having  fulfilled  its  mission 
and  completed  its  cycle,  comes  to  a  close.  It 
has  its  own  periodic  character  taken  by  itself, 
as  a  whole ;  but  it  also  reveals  subordinate  Pe 
riods,  each  of  which  is  a  part  or  stage  of  the 
grand  total,  yet  has  also  its  own  special  process. 
That  is,  the  Ten  Years'  War  has  its  own  unique 
sweep  and  meaning;  but  it  is  divided,  or  we  may 
say,  divides  itself  into  the  stages  which  are  desig 
nated  as  the  Border  War  in  the  Union  (1) 
which  small  war  has  the  power  of  unfolding  and 
manifesting  the  Union  Disunited  (2),  out  of 
which  is  the  movement  in  the  Great  War  to  the 
Union  Reunited  (3),  and  also  transformed. 
Yet  each  of  these  divisions  or  stages  has  its  own 
process,  and  therein  not  only  mirrors  the  whole 
of  which  it  is  a  part,  but  interlinks  with  the  same 
in  the  one  general  process. 

3.  Nor  should  we   forget  the   thought  in  this 


RETROSPECT.  525 

connection  that  the  sweep  of  the  Ten  Years' 
War  is  but  a  stage  or  part  of  a  still  greater  move 
ment,  that  of  the  Federal  Union  from  its  begin 
ning  till  the  present.  Being  in  Time  it  has  a  be 
fore  and  after.  And  the  entire  development  of 
the  Federal  Union  is  itself  but  a  portion  of  a 
greater  historic  totality.  Thus  we  may,  or  in 
deed  must,  go  on  widening  our  view  till  we  reach 
the  conception  of  Universal  History,  whose  es 
sential  process  is  to  be  present  in  all  its  parts 
even  the  minutest,  otherwise  they  could  not  be 
parts  of  it.  Ultimately  History  as  a  whole  or  as 
universal  must  be  seen  creating  each  of  its  stages 
or  epochs  or  events ;  and  the  reader  who  gets  its 
deepest  lesson  has  to  commune  with  this  creative 
power  of  it,  and  re-create  it  in  thought  as  it 
brings  forth  the  pivotal  occurrences  of  Time. 
To  use  the  expression  already  often  employed, 
the  World-Spirit  must  be  witnessed  at  last  as  the 
inner  generating  power  of  ail  History. 

Accordingly,  local  or  national  History,  if  it  be 
worthy  of  the  record,  must  bear  the  impress  of 
Universal  History;  and  this  impress  is  finally 
what  the  historian  is  to  make  manifest  in  his 
work.  The  American  Ten  Years'  War  cannot 
leave  out  of  sight  its  originating  principle,  to 
which  the  appeal  has  often  been  made  in  the 
course  of  the  foregoing  narrative. 

Here  it  is  well  to  note  another  thought  which 
is  sure  to  rise :  History,  even  Universal  History, 
is  not  all,  or  the  All;  it  is  but  one  form  of  man- 


526         THE  TEN  YEARS'   WAE.  —  PART  III. 

ifestation  along  with  others,  such  as  Science, 
Art,  Poetry  These,  then,  are  likewise  to  be  co 
ordinated  with  History  into  one  complete  process 
of  the  All,  which  process  is  in  its  turn  creative 
of  these  special  forms  of  manifestation.  Ulti 
mately  up  to  this  highest  process  History  is  to  be 
carried. 

4.  The  process  is  then  what  connects  the  iu\v- 
est   and   highest,  connects  the   little    round    of 
events  with  the  creative  act  of  the  Universe.    To 
be  sure  the  reader  must  see  this  act,  must  indeed 
recreate  it  for  himself  in  order  to  know  it.  Such 
is  the  true  meaning  of  the  Period  when  rightly 
ordered;  it  gives  the  supreme  process  in  the  par 
ticular  events,  it  reveals  in  the  seeming  incidents 
of  Time  the  creative  mind  of  the  Almighty. 

The  Period  of  the  Ten  Years'  War  has,  ac 
cordingly,  a  significance  which  rises  beyond  His 
tory,  if  we  pluck  its  topmost  fruit.  It  carries  us 
up  to  the  Creator  creating  riot  only  it  but  every 
thing  else.  The  Period  rounding  itself  out  with 
its  subordinate  stages,  which  are  also  Periods, 
leads  us  to  see  not  merely  the  movement  of  His 
tory  but  of  the  Universe.  Indeed  unless  I  can 
see  History  as  a  part  of  the  Great  Whole,  I  can 
not  see  it  as  the  whole  of  itself. 

5.  The    American   Ten  Years'  War  has  ac 
cordingly,    its   distinct,    predicable   object:    the 
elimination  of    the  dualism  introduced  into  the 
Union  at  its  birth.     The   expression,  the  dual 
ism  in  the  Union,  discloses  in  words  the  contra- 


BETROSPECT.  527 

diction  which  has  become  conscious  and  active 
in  the  Folk-Soul,  and  which  gives  it  no  peace 
until  eliminated.  Undoubtedly  this  dualism  had 
existed  for  many  years,  and  was  known  to  exist ; 
but  its  opposing  sides  never  broke  forth  into 
violence,  organized  and  persistent,  till  that  first 
invasion  of  Kansas,  in  the  spring  of  1855  (see 
the  first  chapter  of  this  book).  The  war  then 
begun  ends  with  the  scene  at  Appomattox,  the 
dualism  being  overcome,  with  the  Nation  one 
and  homogeneous  in  the  matter  of  slavery,  and 
with  the  Union. Free-State  producing  henceforth 
forever. 

Such  is  the  historic  Period  now  rounded  out 
and  lying  before  us,  in  which  much  stress  has 
been  put  upon  that  higher  presiding  Spirit  of 
all  History  as  it  works  in  the  soul  of  the 
People,  and  thereby  realizes  itself  in  the  occur 
rences  of  Time.  But  this  task  could  not  be 
rightly  fulfilled  without  the  co-operation  of  the 
mediating  Spirit  embodied  in  the  Man  of  the 
Period,  its  true  Hero,  whose  transcendent  gift 
was  the  ability  to  bring  together  these  two  ele 
mental  principles  of  History,  the  World-Spirit 
and  the  Folk-Soul,  and  to  make  them  function 
harmoniously  toward  the  one  supreme  result. 
But  to  give  his  work  as  it  is  in  itself  and  to  show 
his  place  adequately,  we  must  take  a  new  point 
of  view  and  enter  upon  the  task  of  a  new 
science,  passing  out  of  Historiography  into  its 
counterpart,  Biography. 


K>«p  this  Catalogue  for  Reference. 

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I.  Commentary  on  the  Literary  Bibles,  in  9  vols. 

1.  Shakespeare's  Dramas,  3  vols. 

Tragedies  (new  edition),     .         .  $1.50 

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First  Part  (new  edition),     .         .  1.50 

Second  Part  (new  edition),         .  1.50 

3.  Homer's  Iliad  (new  edition),         .  1.50 

"        Odyssey,           .         .         .  1.50 

4.  Dante's  Inferno,     ....  1.50 

ft         Purgatory  and  Paradise,  1.50 

II.  Psychology. 

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III.  Kindergarden. 

1.  Commentary  on  Froebel's  Mother 

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IV.  Poems  —  in  5  vols. 

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2.  Delphic  Days,         .         .         .         .  l.<  0 

3.  Agamemnon's  Daughter,        .         .  1.00 

4.  Prorsus  Retrorsus,         .        .        .  1.00 

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V.  Miscellaneous. 

1.  A  Walk  in  Hellas,           .         .         .  1.25 

2.  The  Freeburgers  (a  novel),            .  1.25 

3.  World's  Fair  Studies,    .         .         .  ?  .25 
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